Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 12 October 2022.
It's a good question, and I have continuing discussions with both Qualifications Wales and WJEC in relation to some of the issues that arose over the course of the summer exam series. He will remember, of course, that both Qualifications Wales and WJEC wrote to centres in advance of results days explaining what had happened, what their reviews had revealed and the steps that they were taking in order to respond to those, which included altering marking schemes and grade boundaries in relation to papers that were affected. There is some element of this that happens in many years, unfortunately. Of course, I accept that this year, given the heightened anxiety of learners, those challenges will have been more keenly felt by young people. I would want to be very clear, though, in reassuring them that these steps put in place were able to reflect the situations that arose and able to compensate for that in the marking schemes, giving fair outcomes to all learners. But, obviously, as in each of these years, which have been pretty unique in how we've responded to COVID, there are things to learn for future years, and I am confident those lessons will have been learned for future years.