Boris Johnson admitted his government ‘let down a lot of kids’ during the COVID pandemic, as the former PM gave evidence at the UK’s long-running inquiry in London on Tuesday.
“I take full responsibility for all the decisions that we took and all mistakes that were made, were mistakes that i am accountable for and take responsibility for and and in so far as we got things wrong and then of course I apologise for that,” he said.
He hit back at claims that the Department of Education had no plan for school closures, but did say that the system for handing out exam grades- which saw many children receive much lower-than-expected marks – was flawed.
“We had to find a way of adjudicating on the academic achievement of the kids that didn’t involve an exam,” he said. “Plainly, it let down a lot of kids whose grades didn’t reflect their abilities and their achievements.”
The system involved teacher predictions and an ‘algorithm’ to standardise marks. However, he also went on the offensive about the policy too.
“I mean, it was not a good system. We should not have put it through. We should have spotted it faster. I mean, yeah, I think that your criticisms are valid. All I would say is that you try coming up with a system to give a fair exam result for people when they can’t sit exams. It’s not easy, OK? That’s all i would say,” he said, almost shouting.
Johnson was also shown a message sent to key advisor Dominic Cummings over the exam results disaster – which included on-screen, but not read out, the phrase that he was in a ‘homicidal mood.”
Clair Dobbin KC, inquiry prosecutor, did read out the subsequent message: “‘We need a plan for the Department of Education we need a perm second we need better ministers and quite frankly we need an agenda of reform we can’t go on like this I’m thinking of going into number 10 and firing people’.”
Credit to : Mint