The proportion of students awarded “unexplained” top grades has fallen from its peak during the pandemic, but the sector is “not out of the woods” yet, the English regulator has warned.
About a third (32.8 per cent) of students received a first-class degree in 2021-22, according to an annual report by the Office for Students (OfS) – down from a record high of 37.4 per cent the year before.
The annual study claimed that half of those firsts (16.4 per cent) could not be explained by changes in students’ prior attainment or choice of subject when compared with students’ attainment more than a decade ago.
This was down from 21.2 per cent “unexplained” top grades in 2020-21 and 21 per cent in 2019-20, but still above the 15 per cent in the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic impacted assessment.
