Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)

[RedToothBrush]

In Aug 2020, London, DC's prototype 'PreGrades' launched from the education department stops plebs before they go to university, reducing the social mobility rate to zero percent. Social mobility is predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Teachers", who "predict" grades by marking shit lots of course work and exams over a period of years. Would-be social climbers are knocked down in a computer algorithm which distorts reality and hits the disadvantaged hardest. Central government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide by applying it in all departments from the DWP, the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice to predict benefit fraud, getting sick asylum seeking and crime before it occurs.

DC's vision of the future is based on excellence being genetically ingrained into the elite but he must sell this vision to the unsuspecting public in a series of public votes which rely on the idea of the 'undeserving'. Little do they know that they too will be the victims of this plan until a mysterious bug appears and only the wealthy and well connected are able to get hold of adequate PPE and they are no longer able to buy bog roll nor retire to Spain as they had previously and endless queues for pizza form near Kent.

@Peregrina

But overturning the results now, is still going to leave a mess. What of those who have accepted alternative university places - are the old offers going to be re-instated?

Did the Tories really not know what a fiasco this would turn out to be?

They will have to go next year. Which for some of the poorest mean 'never' in practice.

Which for some of the poorest mean 'never' in practice.

So much for the Tory guff of 'levelling up'.

Not sure whether I should laugh, cry or be angry

Just as accurate, I would say.

Merkel carefully avoided this trap
and would anyway know better than to apply an algorithm / model to predict individuals
(it helps having a doctorate in quantum chemistry instead of a newspaper column where BJ could invent anything)

In Germany, students sat their final exams in April as usual, even though this was around peak deaths
There was plenty of space plus cleaning, volunteer invigilators

This is what other countries around Europe did - all seem to have worked out something reasonable & fair:

news.sky.com/story/how-other-countries-in-europe-held-their-exams-12051074

"They will have to go next year. Which for some of the poorest mean 'never' in practice."

That would have been my case:
I had one change to escape poverty - family & friends had been saying about uni for the previous 2 years "ideas above your station"

I couldn't have even managed an Autumn resit - mum couldn't have afforded to keep me or pay the fees - let alone the tutors that the MN mc were blithely discussing would be required, to reach a good exam standard.

Some people have no idea what poverty and deprivation actually mean
One important aspect is that if you are lucky enough to get a chance of an escape, you don't get a 2nd

Yes, but we couldn't copy other European countries, could we? We had to be different and be World Beating, or failing that, slavishly copy the USA. I don't know what they do about university exams.

Govt u turn

U-TURN !!

Oh thank goodness, for the sake of all the students 😄😄
I hope none have lost their place to someone else in the meantime, but at least nearly all have been saved

The US system for university entry takes place in Autumn and is post SAT exam scores so decisions would have been final by Spring 2020 for this Fall entry.

So relieved for my nephew and all uk kids...

What a total shambles

Just 2 days after Williamson's "No U-turn, no change”

Illustrating the consequences of those at the top being "promoted above their ability"

Craziness. Apparently its all "predicted grades" now.
Maybe it won't happen but I hope the next few years A-Level students remember today for a long, long time.

It's hard to know what to say, really. None of what is happening is really unexpected. Yes there is an argument that "no one saw a pandemic happening", but it's wrong. People did see a pandemic coming. And have done for many years. So the one excuse the government might have had about "nobody could have foreseen this" is actually a bit whiny.

Beyond that, it's fair - but not popular - to say this is what people wanted. We know this, because people voted a Tory government in, having seen the spectacular fuck ups they had already made before the election.

I wonder how many (if any) Tory voting parents of kids that are being slowly shafted now are aware of their part in this fiasco ?

You really have to wonder how bad Corbyn could have been for anyone to still be convinced this is the best we deserve.

Completely agree DGR.

.

Apparently its all "predicted grades" now.

It's not though - those are for UCAS in the Autumn, on the basis of 'with a fair wind you could/should achieve this.' These are taking the whole of year 12 work, plus as much of year 13 as was completed, plus mocks, or essays or whatever else was used to assess the pupils.

Most of us knew more or less where we stood at school, who was going to do well, who was likely to fail, and so will most teachers. Some children do better than expected, some don't do as well.

What an utter shambles - these results could have been published a month ago, and any aberrant results investigated in a timely manner and remedied. Is Williamson resigning, or being sacked?

I'd love to think that in 4 years the tories will be decimated but...
We all know they are held to a totally different standard to other parties...
And people have short memories

Williams is gone surely? Can’t say I will be sorry to see him leave. What a fiasco. Hopefully at least for today some young people are back on track to the university they were expecting to go to.

Why would he?
Cummings, Jenrick and the alleged rapist are still around...
This is truly a Govt and cabinet of venal self serving fuckwits

A weary (and temp name changed) PMK
thanks @RedToothBrush and everyone who keeps these threads going

How?
Places have been allocated and courses filled...

Some won't be back on track though, will they? Their places might have gone to someone else in clearing. For those that have accepted an insurance place, it isn't too bad, because it is at least somewhere you applied to and presumably were happy to go to.

The government capped some Unis, who could take more
These caps should be removed and Unis should be given any extra funds needed to cope with the extra students

Mary Curnock Cook, the former chief executive of Ucas, said the government must announce immediately that the cap on university admissions will be lifted to accommodate the new grading system.