Examiners lament ‘decline in excellence’ in English A-level

Examiners said they are very concerned at the fact that only 10 out of 782 candidates obtained an A grade in their English Matriculation exam in the 2020 sitting for the A-level paper.

In their 2019 report, examiners had noted “a clear downward trend in performance in the higher brackets over the last five years.” In fact between 2015 and 2020 A students declined from 4.1% to just 1.3% in last year’s session.

While in 2020 the percentage of As and Bs, put together, is higher than in 2019 (9.4%, up from 8.1%), this was lower than in 2017 (11%); 2016 (12.3%); 2015 (14.3%), and 2014 (15%).

One has to go back to 2007 (7 As from 676 candidates) to find a comparably lacklustre performance in terms of the number of As.

But despite the lack of As, the examiners insist that this should not be simply interpreted as a sign of falling standards across the board.

In fact, an analysis of grades shows that there were more Ds (17.9%, up from 17.2%), more Cs (30.7%, up from 29.1%), and more Bs (8.1%, up from 5.9%) than in 2019.

On the other hand, there were fewer Es (14.5%, down from 16.2%), and As (1.3%, down from 2.4%). Significantly fewer candidates who failed (9.4%, down from 19.9% in 2019). The general picture, therefore, is of a higher concentration of B to D performances and fewer As, Es and Fs.

However, the report describes “the gradual dwindling in excellence in the last 5 years” as “ a cause for concern” which merits an investigation by educators and policy makers, particularly because the expected standards for each grade have not changed significantly in any way in this period.

Still despite the decline in students obtaining the top marks, the report notes that there were far fewer very poor performances than in the last few years. This may be attributable to candidates having had more time to prepare for this exam due to it having been held in September (instead of May) due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it could also be to the very high number of absentees which now account for nearly a fifth of all registered students.

In the 2020 session, 142 candidates, (18.2% of the candidates registered for the exam) were absent. In previous years, the official number of absent candidates did not include a significant number of candidates who would attend the oral exam but then miss one or more of the written components. In such cases, candidates are not marked as absent.

For instance, while the official percentage of Absent candidates in 2019 was 9.3%, in actual fact 14.1% of the candidates missed one or more of the written components.

Since, due to COVID-19, no oral examination was held this year, and the number of absentees can be compared to those who missed the written component in previous years.

But even when this is accounted for, the percentage of absent candidates in 2020 (18.2%) is markedly higher than that of 2019 (14.1%), 2018, (10.7%) and 2017 (12.1%).

Examiners insist that this increase in absent candidates cannot be attributed to changes in the syllabus or to any changes in the expected standards in the exam. Indeed, despite there being a new syllabus, the average scores in the various components of the exam were only marginally different from last year (and the differences were well within ranges that are to be expected across different sittings).

“Despite the significant disruptions that COVID-19 has caused, we note that the candidates’ performance in the 2020 September session was, on average, better than in 2019,” they said, nothing a higher percentage of A-C performances (40.0%, up from 37.4% in 2019), a higher percentage of A-E performances (72.4%, up from 70.8% in 2019), and significantly fewer candidates who failed (9.4%, down from 19.9% in 2019).