Abolishing exams regulator Ofqual would be “exactly the wrong step to take” in the “aftermath of the exams grading chaos”, an education policy think tank has warned.

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) says there is no evidence to suggest that the Department for Education would do a better job of exam regulation.

EPI executive chairman David Laws (pictured) said: “It’s crucial that the aftermath of the exams grading chaos isn’t just a blame game of background briefings where the Department for Education and the exams regulator seek to pass the parcel of responsibility between them.”

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The warning from Mr Laws, a former Liberal Democrat schools minister, comes on a day that education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has been claiming that Ofqual “didn’t deliver” the GCSE and A-level results system the government had been told would be in place this year. 

“We urgently need a fully independent review of what happened this year so that errors made are clearly understood and so that the right lessons are learned for the future,” Mr Laws said.

“There is still a real risk of repeated exams disruption in 2021, and we need a better back-up system than we have had this year.

“Abolishing Ofqual would be exactly the wrong step to take. There is little or no evidence to suggest that the Department for Education would do a better job of exam regulation, and much evidence that politicians are not the right people to make objective judgements on maintaining education standards.” 

The DfE made a U-turn yesterday by disregarding moderated grades produced by exam moderator Ofqual in favour of allowing GCSE and A-level students to be awarded teacher-assessed grades.