A level results: Why algorithms aren't making the grade

When the UK government decided to cancel school exams due to the coronavirus pandemic, they gave examination regulators Ofqual a challenge: allocate grades to students anyway, and make sure the grades given out this year are equivalent in standard to previous years. Ofqual's solution was to create an algorithm – a computer program designed to predict what grades the students would have received if they had taken exams. Unfortunately, when the computer-generated grades were issued, 40 per cent of A-Level students got lower grades than their teachers had predicted. Promised university places were withdrawn. Lawyers offered to take legal action against Ofqual.