LOOKING into the details of the now-abandoned algorithm used to predict exam results in England last week it was announced that students and teachers had squeezed a hard-fought and rapid U-turn out of the Conservative government.

The reversal of previous decisions in the A-level results fiasco in England followed earlier U-turns by both the SQA under the SNP in Scotland, and the Welsh Labour government.

In an already agonising and difficult year, the government had used an opaque algorithm that was not available for public scrutiny to predict grades for students who were unable to sit their exams due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The word algorithm here is being used to mean the use of statistics to predict and determine outcomes, rather than merely monitor and analyse distributions to better understand them. As in the old saying “lies, damn lies and statistics” — algorithms, or the systematised application of statistics, can be used to justify any political will imaginable.