This week’s principal items of news about the impact of Covid were barely noticed. In brief, the first of them was that the economy has been assessed as having grown by 4.8% between April and June as the easing of lockdown measures took effect. Much of the growth was in the retail and hospitality sectors. Whilst encouraging, it was slightly behind the Bank of England’s forecast of 5% and leaves the economy at a level which is 4.4% lower than before the first lockdown. The second is that at 1.65 million, the number of job vacancies is at a record level, providing further evidence of a recovering economy. The third is that Tui has reported a significant jump in holiday bookings across Europe. However, bookings from the UK have lagged behind. The rain in early August suggests that it can’t be the weather that’s holding us here. The likelihood seems to be that people are wary of a change in traffic light status of their chosen destination whilst they are away and so are waiting until next year.

As is inevitable during exam result week, until last night’s dreadful events in Plymouth, those stories along with the Berlin spy story and the rapid resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, have been swamped by the A level and GCSE results. The news media were full of them before, during, and after, and the bones are now being picked over.

Let me make it clear that I have no difficulty with what’s happened this year. Pupils, schools, and parents have all faced tremendous difficulties in delivering education this year, and we have to be grateful that they have risen to the challenge. Last year's will they/won’t they sit exams saga wasn’t a good thing for anyone, so creating certainty early on about the absence of exams made great sense. Teacher assessments also made sense as the only viable means of producing results at the end of courses. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that teacher assessment isn’t particularly novel, as they have, at different times and to varying degrees, had a role in assessing performance for A levels, GCSE’s and BTECs for a number of years.

However, there is also a general recognition that this year’s results create a situation which is unsustainable in the long term.  We have a profile of grades awarded which is too heavily weighted in favour of the top grades. This makes it hard for those trying to select candidates for higher and further education and for jobs and training to identify who the most able candidates are, and has led, for example, to a number of universities considering introducing their own entrance tests or making them more widespread across their courses.  The Sutton Trust has reported that this year’s results have seen a widening of the attainment gap between pupils in the state sector and those in the independent sector. Whilst this may be a temporary effect of there having been no exams, if it is more than that, it poses issues in terms of education as a driver of social mobility.

It has been suggested that A levels will be re-calibrated with grades expressed as numbers rather than letters. Having seen this happen to GCSE’s a few years ago, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the political need for grade inflation to demonstrate successful stewardship of education by the government of the day will mean that any such re-setting will be rapidly eroded. If you look at the root of the word education, it lies in a Latin word which expresses the notion of the pupil being led. If you look at the origins of the labour movement, there was great emphasis on education as a means of self-fulfillment and achieving both potential and social mobility. Within classical centre right politics, education is also an important factor in enabling each generation to do better than its parents. Employers and universities alike want people who schools have been able to equip with an ability to engage quickly with their work or their courses. What it feels that we have, as part of a process which began with the school league tables many years ago, is a philosophy of education within government which has the production of two dimensional performance statistics as too large a factor. It can’t be right that our school pupils are used as means of gaining political bragging rights through the medium of annual grade inflation. So my wish as a parent, an employer and someone who believes in the importance of education is that the new system, whatever it may be, puts education at its heart and pays rather less attention than in the recent past to a statistically based demonstration of progress, concentrating instead on the true purpose, importance and benefits of education. I’m sorry to say that I’m not holding my breath.

Today is an exciting day for me - although England are some way behind after yesterday, cricket at Lord’s for the first time in a long time will be a real treat. Whatever you’re doing, do have a good weekend.

Ian Waine leads Prettys’ Corporate Services Team and has advised on a large number of corporate recovery and corporate restructuring cases over the last 30 years. He can be contacted at 07979 498817 or iwaine@prettys.co.uk.