Due to the fiasco surrounding exam results, I reached out to different friends with varying political views, religious views, results and opinions to hear about their views on how young people as a whole are feeing, and unsurprisingly – most of our views are similar, we stand together as a generation. There have been several outcomes over the last few weeks, one of these is the clear uncertainty and frustration that has enveloped all young people around GCSE and A-level years.
“They had me crying in anger, having left my friends, family and everything in a different country just to come to uni here and then having your whole life turned over and messed up by the government in quite the experience. My future is now uncertain.”
“I had overcome barriers and gained a place at LSE in March which is harder than Oxbridge, but this offer was taken away from me under the exam algorithm – I fell at the last hurdle by something that was out of my hands.”
“This uncertainty is also going to have very negative effects on the mental health of thousands of young people in my generation.”
“I have been forced into feeling hopeless about our future, but at this point, it was expected due to the lack of coordination in the government.”
Thousands of students can’t go to their uni of choice or further education and are stuck at a dead end, with all hopes gone. This personally makes me really annoyed, knowing that these students had no say in the matter, as mock results and predicted grades are never fully accurate, as I know from experience that I never try as hard as possible for mock exams (although I definitely would if I knew that a deadly virus would cause them to be my actual results, glued to my CV forever!)
This leads me on to another outcome of this - our government system has its set priorities and will not waiver from them, resulting in most young people now not trusting those in charge and despising those who have limited their futures.
“I have lost my faith in those in charge; I feel that they want to keep their proletariat in their place and keep those who have private education privileged. I do find it intriguing how our government makes it very clear their hearts aren’t for immigrants, refugees or people who claim benefits to ensure those people stay as low down as possible.”
“Despite getting into my uni of choice, the competitive part of me still feels I deserved better than the grades I was given, I have been stripped of my ability to show myself, as this is now a reflection of my mocks which I didn’t try very hard for. I deserve better. I could’ve done better, and as each day passes, so could have those in charge as their failures become more apparent – first the delayed actions taken against Covid-19 and now the utter failure of the grading system implemented. It feels like we are constantly being used as experiments to limit what the government can and can’t do.”
“It’s an ill-founded, ill-conceived and politicised appeal system that’s preventing us from thriving.”
I cannot stress enough how much the government has messed around our year groups and results in the last two weeks. They could not and still cannot make up their mind, each decision creates more flaws in their system with the hypocrisy and opposing views of people supposedly standing together being absurd.
This leads me on to another issue, how GCSE students received hugely better grades than those getting A level results; the cause of this bottles down to the government trying to cover up their mistakes. If their next generation of voters doesn’t like them, then they won’t get the votes to stay on top. So, what do you do? Try and turn the situation around and be nicer to the next mass of students receiving results.
“This was a lot of stress because they had months to sort this whole thing out and waited until the last week of getting our results to make a massive u-turn. I’m just happy we weren’t disadvantaged because of where we live like we would’ve been if they used the standardized model.”
“As a GCSE student, I have respect for those who received A level results before us, it really feels as if they took the bullet for us, they received and experienced the effects of the standardized algorithm before us, and got much lower grades because of it. Then in response to this, the government decided to give the GCSE students great grades, as most people in my year have received grades that are as high as they would reasonably get.”
However, other people have seen God’s goodness and guidance in this situation…
“I have felt God’s guidance throughout this whole university application process – he was the one who told me what university to go to – Bristol. He gave me peace, clarity and reassurance despite the unsettled confusion. After seeing my official grades my main emotion was anger but I realised I should’ve kept my trust in God: he always comes through. I then received an email from my desired uni saying that they would accept me! I was very relieved to get in, not just for myself but because I know that God wants me at Bristol so I'm excited to step into His plan for me!”
Overall, I have realised that whatever the government throws at us young people, as a whole we believe the same things and will stand up for others who get put down. This has really empowered me and helped me realise that God’s work is evident in all situations, even the ones that seem so confusing and helpless. Now we just need to pray that those in charge will do more of God’s will and will be compassionate and just in their decisions.
For more reflections on the issues surrounding this year's exam results from young people and the Urban Saints team: