The problem with averages

摘要

The whole exam fiasco has been unedifying at best and the destroyer of lives and wellbeing at worst. There were never going to be any easy or simple answers once we knew exams would not be used to assess this cohort of teenagers. It is hard to imagine how the Government, in both Westminster, the devolved nations, and the regulators, could have made any more of a shambles than that which they inflicted upon children, many of whom are already about to be thrown head first into an appalling job market. One could wallow in countless aspects of this hapless story, but a lesson that comes out loud and clear for all policy- makers and leaders is that individuals matter, not just averages. In the case of exams, ministers told us (before they promptly jumped ship on the algorithm) that on average they would not treat poorer kids any less fairly than the better-off kids. That claim is debatable, given what we came to know about the bias favouring smaller groups who were found in private schools.