How will university selection processes take into account that the percentage of the syllabus learnt but students with the same grades varies substantially from school to school?
I got my first degree in Engineering. When i arrived for my course there was already significant variation in the knowledge of my fellow students. The course assumed that there was a level of pre-existing knowledge, particularly in maths. Some students were lucky enough be ahead of others and therefore already knew the course material that we started with. Others didn't have that knowledge and either had to work very hard to catch up or dropped out. There were 120 students on my course at the start of year 1. By the end of that year we were down to less that 80.
Obviously not all of them dropped out for the reasons above, by a significant portion of them did.
What i suspect will happen is that the universities will accept a higher drop our rate, or start teaching more basic material which in turn means that the students that graduate from that course won't have had time to study advanced subjects to the same level as previous years. That then means lower grade achievement by those students, or grade inflation at degree level which means that this crop of graduates affected by covid won't be educated to the same level as previous years.
To be clear, i'm not blaming the students or the teachers. I think that the government have got this wrong by allowing the grade inflation and should have found another way to assess the students. EG double grades for each subject. One grade for ability and another for knowledge. That would allow employers and universities to assess both the students ability but also their knowledge.
i think there needs to be an acceptance that, through no fault of their own, this year's crop of GCSE and A level students have not been as well educated as in previous years due to the disruption they've suffered due to covid.
