By Sheila Mckenzie-
AQA has been fined a whopping £350,000 in the largest ever penalty fine handed out by Ofqual . The exam board has also been ordered to compensate schools by £740,000 for “serious breaches” of rules over re-marks.
The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) is an awarding body in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is the largest examination board for G.CSE;s and A Levels in England which compiles specifications and holds examinations in various subjects at GCSE, AS and A Level and offers vocational qualifications. … AQA is the largest examination board for GCSEs and GCE A Levels in England.
GUILTY
The exam board was found guilty of failing to ensure re-marks and moderation of GCSEs and A-levels were not carried out by the original marker, or by someone without a personal interest in the outcome.
An estimated 50,000 re-marks or moderations were affected by the failing, equating around 7 per cent of all reviews carried out by the exam board each year.
AQA said around 3,000 schools were affected, and will receive between £110 and £440 each in compensation.
Ofqual said AQA had not ensured its workforce was of “appropriate size and competence” to manage risks.
It added there was “no evidence” to show any learners or centres had received the wrong outcome, but said the issues were “serious breaches” of conditions that are “integral to the effectiveness and purpose of the system of reviewing marking and moderation”.
“The failures therefore have the potential to seriously undermine public confidence in the review of marking, moderation and appeals system, and the qualifications system more generally”.
THREE YEARS BREACHES
Ofqual said the re-mark issues spanned across 2016, 2017 and 2018. Although the majority of the re-marks affected (93 per cent) involved individual, anonymised answers, seven per cent involved reviews of whole exam scripts.
Mark Bedlow, AQA’s interim chief executive, said the problem was a “past technical issue” that has now been resolved, and insisted in the “vast majority of cases” in involved “one isolated, anonymised answer from a paper being reviewed by the senior examiner who originally marked it”.
“But reviews should always be carried out by a fresh pair of eyes and we’re sorry that, for a small proportion in the past, this wasn’t the case.
The exam board had been alerted to two incidents of this nature through appeals in 2016 and 2017. Ofqual said the exam board had failed to notify them of the incidents despite having reason to believe they could result in an adverse effect.al breach in November.
FINE OVER FRENCH EXAM MARKING
The exam board was separately handed a £50,000 penalty because its marking scheme for A-level French exam in 2018 was “not fit for purpose”.
One point of complaint in the marking system was highlighted in the case of a question where students were asked to fill in the blanks in a passage, with a list of words that each had a corresponding letter.
Although 10% of pupils correctly put the word in the relevant space, instead of the letter, but the mark scheme didn’t allow pupils to get marks for this.
Ofqual said the French mark scheme did not take into account all evidence or allow for the level of attainment demonstrated by some pupils to be reflected in their marks.
Representatives of AQA conceded that the mark scheme was “too prescriptive”, and said affected pupils received the “extra marks they deserved”
The exam board had earlier been rapped by Ofqual for including a question in its 2018 English Literature GCSE exam that was “nearly identical” to a question it had used in a 2014 practice paper.
AQA had told Ofqual they would be including the question the day before the exam, and added the question was used “because it’s important that no -one thinks a topic won’t come up if it’s already featured in a past paper.”
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