The issue of marks being awarded by Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) got heated when students were unable to get the grades predicted by their respective schools. Federal Minister for Education also took the matter seriously and showed the interest of government towards it by tweeting on it. This week, Federal Minister again used Twitter for informing that the efforts of Education Ministry have been fruitful as CAIE will now not award less grades to what schools have predicted and shared. Moreover, the higher grade will stand if the predicted grade is higher than what CAIE had previously awarded.
CAIE had also informed to all the Cambridge schools in Pakistan that students will be issued new results as per the change in policy. This revision was not new for schools and students as CAIE had committed to give the grades predicted by schools but then a certain change came the way of students and institutes. The new grades are in the process of being announced with some schools receiving the revised grades, whereas, others will receive within this week. This decision has been generally welcomed by students and their families as much needed promise has been fulfilled at last.
These marks are being awarded to students because the May and June exams in Pakistan were cancelled due to fast spreading disease of corona virus. Last month, CAIE has issued a four step process for grading of the students in which schools’ prediction was given priority. Students who were predicted As and Bs by schools were awarded Cs and Ds by CAIE, whereas, students predicted as Bs and Cs were given As. This brought a large disparity and the debate got heated. Students were completely in an out of control situation as they were not awarded deserving grades.
One of the most dangerous outcome that this unfair grading had was on A Level students’. Students were not given grades on their performances which reduced their chances of getting admissions into leading universities of the world with losing on grants and scholarships too. Students also used social and electronic media for showing their dissatisfaction with the results with requesting Educational Ministry for revising the results.
