A teenager who was stabbed days before he was supposed to sit his GCSE exams will be held back a year after exam boards refused his request to award him his predicted grades.
The 16-year-old from north London, who has asked to remain anonymous, was attacked at random in a park,
He was unable to sit his exams after the stabbing resulted in him losing part of his lunch but he had been predicted to get good grades, including a number of A stars.
In extenuating circumstances exam boards can award students the qualification but the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents the boards AQA, OCR and Pearson Edexcel, said to do so students are required to have completed 25 per cent of their course.
As the pupil had not managed to do so the best they could offer was “honorary awards”, which come in the form of a letter, and not the usual certificate.
His head teacher, local MP and family have all appealed to the exam board to reverse their decision as they believe it could hold the pupil back when having to explain to prospective employers that he was stabbed.
The boy’s father, who works as an executive in a telecommunications company, criticised the bureaucracy of the exam boards.
“I’m shocked that the system was so insensitive, to heap more anguish and suffering on a child who’s trying to recover, understand his injuries and move on,” he told The Times.
“They have a provision for rare and exceptional circumstances but they have never used it and don’t seem to be willing to. I don’t know how much more rare and exceptional a situation can be.”
A JCQ spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear of this knife attack and wish the student involved a full recovery.
“When candidates are unable to sit an examination because of illness or injury, to be fair to all students, exam boards need candidates to have completed 25 per cent of a GCSE or A Level in order to calculate what they might have achieved.
“In this instance the student was unable to complete 25 per cent of their GCSE exams. Therefore, the examination boards have offered to provide honorary awards that can be used with colleges, employers and universities to explain the circumstances involved.”
“Having a fair system is important and each year thousands of students are injured, suffer accidents, or diagnosed with an illness. Exam boards need sufficient evidence to make an award hence the 25 per cent threshold.”
