Thousands more students may not receive their exam results on Thursday after an exam board admitted it was continuing to deal with delays. Students across the country are awaiting GCSE grades on Thursday, as well as BTec results.
Exam board Pearson said that around 7,000 BTec (Business and Technology Education Council) students are “currently ineligible to receive their grade as they do not meet the qualification criteria at this time”. BTecs are described by Pearson as career–focused qualifications with a focus on skills-based learning.
The latest update follows almost a week-long delay for other BTec students, who were not issued their results as planned last Thursday when A-levels were published.
A spokesperson for Pearson said on Wednesday: “Today we sent 235,000 BTec Firsts, Technicals and Tech Awards grades to schools and colleges to be shared with students tomorrow. As of 9am today, there are 7,000 students that are currently ineligible to receive their grade as they do not meet the qualification criteria at this time. We have a dedicated team in place to work with schools and colleges to obtain and validate any outstanding information.
“Our focus is on running those eligibility checks and providing any results as quickly as possible to students. As always, we are grateful to the partnership of schools and colleges who are tirelessly supporting us in this work.”
Pearson said that changes this year, made in order to take into account disruption to teaching and learning during the pandemic, had “added more complexity to the process” and that without full information they are unable to award students their results. In relation to last week’s delays, Pearson said that as of Tuesday, there were about 1,100 outstanding claims for BTec Level 3 qualification results required for students’ Ucas applications.
Parents and students have been advised to speak to their school or college if they do not get a result on Thursday. Alternatively, they can contact Pearson on 0345 618 0440.
