Gavin Williamson refuses FOUR times to say if he’ll quit after exams shambles

GAVIN Williamson today refused at least FOUR times to say if he'll quit over the exam shambles which saw thousands of grades changed yesterday.

The Education Secretary dodged questions from interviewers repeatedly as he faced a gruelling morning round of probing after the chaos of the last week.

⚠️ Read our GCSE and A-levels live blog for the latest news & updates

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Yesterday afternoon England followed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in doing a complete u-turn over exam grades and ditching the computer-generated ones in favour of teacher-predicted ones.

This morning Mr Williamson refused to answer whether he would resign or not.

He was asked on several morning shows if he would quit, but he insisted he was "determined" to get on with the job "over the coming year".

He told BBC Breakfast: “Of course I spoke with the Prime Minister explained the situation, the fact that we needed to move to central assess grades, because we thought it was the fairest system and the right system today.

“But my focus is making sure that every student gets the grades that they deserve, making sure that we deliver a return of all children back to school in September and ensuring that we continue on our agenda that we were given a mandate for back in December - to make sure that we level up standards right across the country, driving standards in education."

Asked again he said:  “What we're doing is we're focused on delivering the grades for those children. 

“We're going to make sure that all schools return.

“And I'm absolutely determined, over the coming year, that  I'm going to be delivering the world's best education system.

“The improvements and reforms that we've made on over the last 10 years, they need to be built on, that's what our focus is, on that's what my focus is on, and that's what the Prime Minister's focus is on.”

In the same round of interviews Mr Williamson:

• Claimed he was the one who told Boris Johnson there needed to be a u-turn over exams
• Refused to express confidence in exams regulator Ofqual and its head Sally Collier
• Stressed he made the call as soon as more information was available but admitted they were aware of issues nearly two weeks ago
• Insisted that Ofqual had given the Government reassurance the system would work

All exams were cancelled this year over the coronavirus crisis, leaving hundreds of thousands of students and their futures in limbo.

But the change comes days after universities started dishing out spots and students scrambled to secure a place at other institutions.

Now the Government is saying unis should honour all offers - as long as students get the grades they need.

It will trigger a chaotic rush for students to try and get into their first choice uni even though they may have missed out on it just days earlier.

The cap on student places has been ripped up to try and get as many kids into unis as possible.

On Saturday Mr Williamson had insisted there would be “no U-turn, no change” but just 48 hours later a huge operation was underway to change tack.

But he admitted today: "We'd got concerns before ... when we saw what had happened in Scotland, we wanted to have a more robust system put in place."

The Education Committee first raised concerns about the system back in July.

During a blasting by Sky News where he was accused of "incompetence" and repeatedly bashed over the crisis, he grovelled: "I'm incredibly sorry for the fact that this has caused distress."

Last night angry Tory MPs said the “utter shambles” had shattered confidence in the Government and called for Mr Williamson to be sacked.

Mr Williamson said sorry to students for the “distress” caused after his computer system downgraded teachers’ estimates of the marks they would have got had Covid not stopped exams.

And he appeared to put the blame for the whole fiasco at exam regulator Ofqual's door.

He suggested exams regulator Ofqual "didn't deliver" over this year's A-level results calculation process.

An he told LBC: "It is quite clear that there have been some real challenges in terms of what Ofqual have been able to deliver."

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He said this morning: "At every stage of the way we've worked incredibly closely with Ofqual in terms of questioning and probing and working with them in order to be able to ensure that we have the best system in place.

"But there was absolute reassurance that this was the best and fairest route forwards."

The Education Secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Well, we were confident with the assurance that we had got that actually we had a robustness within the system."

Tory MP Robert Halfon, who runs the Commons Education Committee, described Mr Williamson’s system as “a mega mess”.

But he said the Secretary of State and exam regulators Ofqual had to be dragged “kicking and screaming” to do the right thing.

He said: “This must never happen again. Every cat has nine lives and we have lost one of ours in this fiasco.”

Mr Freeman suggested that Mr Williamson is now doomed, adding: “Ultimately, the Prime Minister is in charge.

“And I think he will want to take firm control of this and get a grip and show that his Government is taking the life chances of a generation of children seriously.

“I’m told the Prime Minister is planning to reshuffle in the autumn, and I dare say he wants to take everything into account.”

But Boris Johnson has confidence in Mr Williamson and has no plans to sack him, Government sources said.

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And a YouGov poll yesterday said 40 per cent of the public thought he should quit.

The exam crisis is not his first brush with fiasco. He was fired as Defence Secretary by Mrs May over claims he leaked state secrets about Huawei’s bid to build Britain’s 5G mobile network.

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