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.

eMailed my granddaughter about the U turn as soon as I heard, even though she already had her place despite being downgraded on two subjects.

I told her it was all right to cry. I was!!

I must have been far more stressed and angry than I thought I was.

Ah, I just read the cap has indeed been lifted

• would be pointless for the govt to blink at this, after everything else that has been U-turned

Geist That's brilliant news for MicroGeist 👏🏼

I'm so relieved!
Feel like crying!

All this drama and stress because of an incompetent shower I wouldn't trust to run a bath, let alone a country

I hope they don't get too fulsomely praised for correcting their self-made disasters

Time to replace the worst idiots by some backbenchers - the 2010 intake both Tory & Labour is alleged to have the most talent in 30 years

I am now idly wondering what the Cabinet will do to top this fiasco.

They will probably use the same algorithm for the GCSE's just for the shits and giggles

@TheABC

I am now idly wondering what the Cabinet will do to top this fiasco.

.... Surely at some stage even this government must run of things they can wreck ? < anxious >

@TheABC

I am now idly wondering what the Cabinet will do to top this fiasco.

... Surely at some stage even this government must run out of things they can wreck ? < anxious >

oops, sorry for iPad hiccup

I'm delighted - my fostered teen will see each of his received grades lifted to his (very sensible) CAG grades. He got into his uni of choice anyway, but still.

And Louise FWIW - my DD2 will be sitting A levels next year. She's not selfish enough to think 'well, last year's lot got a sweet deal' because she knows (COVID willing)she will get to go to school, work her arse off and sit the exams, so have some actual control over her future. And are you now clear on the difference between UCAS predicted grades (sunny selling points) and CAG grades (arrived at based on real work)?

Does the U-turn apply to BTECs, or just A levels & GCSEs ?

Well done too, MiniPointy 👏🏼

So nephew - now meets the criteria for Cambridge..... but this is going to be a shot show to sort out. Dear sis know multiple families (incl her cleaner) who weren't accepted at there first choice - some had all offers withdrawn, and have accepted places elsewhere.....but now presuming there CAGS are what they need , can go back to their first place. And the uni would have to take them?
So from what I understand students can use either CAG grades - or the algorithm ones.....

I mean in the current environment- yes they are taking on debt - and that's not great , but better they continue learning and developing themselves rather than leaving school to a second wave of Covid , and huge unemployment.

This shambles could have been avoided if they looked at what Scotland experienced and changed course, but this government constantly has to learn the hard way , at the constituents cost. Bodes well for brexit.....
What will happen when we're out and we can't get food and medicine?

Government cap lifted apparently - so good news for some.

I'm relieved for the sake of pupils and teachers, but I don't envy anyone working in University Admissions right now.

I don't want this to be "ok, sorted, move on" because a mediocre solution, that shifts rather than solves the problem, was completely unnecessary in the first place if there had been a second of due diligence.

Now it will be 'the fault of universities' who fail to give places to those who deserve them. Therefore they will have to be reformed...

It puts them in a very difficult position, because if people meet the grade they have to honour them. I heard a radio program about it once - Warwick had overshot its maths department target, because quite a few missed their Cambridge places. They had to do some horse trading with other departments who were down on numbers. It was a headache and that was a normal year.

From earlier today

Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe
Reminder to anyone calling for a "reset" on student grades
1. There's a cap in place on student numbers, with big fines for exceeding it
2. Even if it's relaxed, covid means university space is at a premium
3. University offers are legal contracts. They can't just be ditched

A reset might be the right thing to do, but it is fiendishly difficult. Any solution needs to account for these complications - if it doesn't, this situation could turn into a second fiasco

More on the cap here. It was put in place to stop highly sought-after universities hoovering up students at the expense of less popular ones

Another complication that will have to be taken into account

From Aug 15th
Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe
Lots of calls for universities to ignore downgrades and respect offers. But even if they wanted to, they couldn't

In June, the government introduced financial penalties for any uni exceeding the new student numbers cap. If they go over even by one, they'll face huge fines

The fines take the form of reductions in the fee limit for universities. If they break the cap, all full-time undergraduates will pay less than £9,250 the next academic year

One top university tells me that would result in financial penalties of £10-20 million

For Russell Group universities, the situation is especially difficult. They over-offered in order to fill places. Now they're hard against the cap

Yet ministers - who, remember, set these rules barely a month ago - are urging them to be flexible

Of course universities can't take all the students they've offered places to, especially not when they've over-offered by as much as they did this year

But they could take more students from under-represented groups

In fact, universities are under strict instruction to take more students from under-represented groups, as part of what's called "widening participation". This is a major strategic goal of higher education in the UK

This is how one university describes those groups. You may notice a certain similarity here - they're also the exact groups penalised by the marking algorithm

But, because of the cap, top universities can't be flexible

Although my friend's daughter thankfully had an unconditional offer I thought I'd belatedly chip in to give an example of the downgrades; her daughter is on FSM and went from x3 B A'levels to x3 E A'levels. She is glad that she finally has the grades she was expecting but so enraged that her daughter was dropped so very low, presumably because of the FSM next to her name on the register.

And thanks @BlackeyedSusan - for me, washing my dog is a sign of something worthwhile and much better news than most

Kids who have already been rejected STAY REJECTED

Even if they remove the cap, will the universities have physical space for the extra students? I vaguely remember news reports of students being put up in bunk beds and neighbouring towns when the previous limits on student numbers were lifted in 2012. Who wants to share a bedroom in the middle of a pandemic and social distancing surely means you can’t cram more people into lecture theatres?

@ListeningQuietly do you have a source for that statement? Everything I've skim read says universities are obliged to honour conditional offers met by CAGs, and with the cap lifted this will be a bulge year.

Accommodation may be all the more problematic, at least at the start of the year, as some universities have committed to providing rooms for international students to quarantine in...