Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive their A-level and GCSE results this week after exams were cancelled for the second year in a row because of Covid.

Students will be given grades determined by teachers, rather than exams, with pupils only assessed on what they have been taught during the pandemic.

A-level and AS level results day is today while GCSE results day is on Thursday.

Pupils have been advised to check with their school or college whether they are still required to pick up their results in person in the morning, or whether they will be sent out by email or post instead. Here we look at some of the questions that students and parents might be asking: 

How have the grades been decided this year?

All four nations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – adopted a system of awarding grades this summer based on teacher based assessment.

Teachers in England have been required to consider a range of evidence, including mock exams, coursework, and in-class assessments using questions by exam boards, to make decisions on pupils’ grades.

Headteachers had to submit a personal declaration that they believed grades to be accurate.

Schools and colleges were asked to provide samples of student work to exam boards, as well as evidence used to determine the grades for the students selected, as part of quality assurance (QA) checks.

Random and targeted sample checks of evidence were also carried out after grades were submitted.

In some cases, where the evidence did not support the grades submitted, schools and colleges have been asked to review their grades.

Last summer, the fiasco around grading led to thousands of A-level students having their results downgraded from school estimates by a controversial algorithm, before Ofqual announced a U-turn.

But this year, no algorithm will be used to moderate teachers’ grades.

What should students do if they are unhappy with their grades?

Pupils in England who want to appeal against their grade must first request that their school or college reviews whether an administrative or procedural error was made.

Each school or college will set their own deadlines by which students must ask them to review a grade.

If the school or college rules no error was made, then students can escalate the appeal to the exam boards, which their school or college is expected to submit on their behalf. 

In England, the deadline to send an appeal to the exam board is September 17.

There is an earlier deadline of August 23 for priority appeals, for example, if a student has not got their first choice of university place confirmed.

Can students sit an exam if they do not like their results?

Students in England who are unhappy with their A-level or GCSE grades will have the opportunity to take exams in the autumn.

AS and A-level exams will be held in October, while GCSE exams will take place in November and December.

The higher grade will count for applicants who wish to take an autumn exam. By Kate Clifton, Metro

Travellers from Kenya remained banned to the United Kingdom in the latest update that took effect yesterday, coming days after President Uhuru Kenyatta’s visit to Britain.

The UK last week updated countries on England’s “Red List” amid concerns about the spread of new Covid-19 variants that have now been reported in Kenya.

Stakeholders in the tourism industry had hoped that President Kenyatta’s recent the UK and the meeting with his British counterpart Boris Johnson would help in lifting the ban on Kenya.

Several media outlets in the UK had projected that Nairobi would join countries like Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and India that have been moved to the Amber List.

The UK retained Kenya, whose cases of Covid-19 have been surging for the last two weeks, on the travel ban first placed in April.

The UK has segmented countries into green, amber and red lists, each carrying different degrees of restrictions for arrivals back to the UK.

A British citizen travelling from a Green and Amber List is not required to undergo a mandatory quarantine.

Travellers arriving in the UK from countries on the Red List will be denied entry while returning Britons must submit to 10 days of mandatory quarantine in hotels.

Cases of Covid-19 in Kenya have jumped to above 208,000 with more than 4,000 cases.

The positivity rate climbed sharply by a double-digit in the last week, raising concerns among health officials.

In Kenya, 670,000 people have been fully vaccinated, representing a paltry 1.3 percent but the country has received several vaccine donations including from the UK and has also procured some with a target of inoculating 10 million Kenyans by next Christmas.

The UK travel ban comes amid fears that the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant may spark the fourth wave of infections in Kenya over the next two months.

Kenya has relaxed punitive requirements imposed on British citizens, which required them to undergo 14 days of isolation before entering the country.

In the mid-June review, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said the British nationals and non-citizens travelling through London are required to self-isolate for only seven days. Business Daily.

An expert in the aviation has attributed unpopular policies by the government, excessive aeronautical and regulatory charges and poor understanding of the global business climate as part of the reasons why investment in aircraft repair facilities and other projects are diverted to neighbouring African countries. 

Chief Executive Officer,Tropical Artic Logistics Limited (TAL), an integrated logistic outfit, Femi Adeniji, who this known in an interview, said unless the Federal Government and its agencies reversed the negative trend Nigeria would lose more investment into the sector.

He said the country recently lost a $2.5 billion investment for the setting up an aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul organisation (MRO) to Ghana on account of the unfriendly business climate.

The facility, according to Adeniji, would have been sited in Nigeria but the unfriendly system operated in the country forced the investors from the United States to divert it to Ghana.

He said Nigeria has lost many investment proposals in the aviation sector on account of the harsh hurdles set by the Ministry of Aviation, the airport and regulatory authorities.

He attributed the lack of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country to corruption in the system stressing that the existing aviation policies and attitude of aviation authorities towards organisations and individuals that indicate interest in FDI has not been encouraging.

Read Also: ‘Lack of cheap funds threatening aviation growth’ 

Adeniji cited instances of such discouraging incidents from people trying to invest in building airports and are shut down through charges on investments from companies outside.

He said the National Assembly committees on aviation have a huge role to play in addressing these gaps by ensuring a review of relevant legislation that will attract and drive offshore investment into the sector. 

He said the committees should look beyond their oversight responsibilities by putting in place enabling legislation that will attract more private sector funds to the sector .

Adeniji said: “The system is completely corrupt. I would give you an example, I have two friends who wanted to invest, Americans who want to invest in this country, build their own private airport accessible to the state, the answer I got from Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria  and Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority  is that one of them should go and bring N35 million.

“In the United States all those things are waived if you are spending your money but in this country it is a different story. I have a very strong relationship with Boeing Aerospace. They are now in Ghana and I am talking of four months ago. They were trying to come in here and they said sorry, we cannot contribute when we are trying to create employment they are making life difficult for us.

“The United States just gave Ghana $2.5 billion to do a feasibility study to set up an MRO that is supposed to be in Nigeria there in Ghana.”

Adeniji decried that there are currently 15 Nigerians managing MROs and related businesses in the United States, but are not disposed to investing in Nigeria because of discouraging policies and feedback they get. By Kelvin Osa-Okumbor, The Nation