Students taking BTec vocational qualifications have been caught up in the exam crisis that has affected A-level and GCSE results in England, contradicting claims by the Department for Education and Ofqual that BTecs would not be disrupted. Schools across England reported frustration with erratic grading, clerical errors and delayed results by the exam board Pearson, which administers BTecs as an equivalent to A-levels, as well as large numbers of students being downgraded from their teacher-assessed grades. While Pearson insisted that only 0.5% of the BTec level 3 grades awarded last week were lowered by its internal process, schools said they had seen many more cases of students getting downgraded results. While A-level and GCSE students were told on Tuesday that their school-assessed grades would replace those awarded by Ofqual, hundreds of thousands of students taking BTecs in schools and colleges have yet to discover how their cases will be handled. Plympton Academy in Plymouth said one of its students taking an engineering BTec was awarded distinctions in all four internally-assessed units. But the course’s single external unit was given a U or fail grade by Pearson, and the student was awarded a U overall rather than the expected top mark of a starred distinction (D*). Paul McCormack, the academy’s assistant principal for curriculum and standards, said the result was a puzzle, with the student ranked in the middle of her class, while students ranked below her in the lists submitted to Pearson received higher grades, which should be impossible. McCormack said at Plympton Academy 39% of BTec results were downgraded from the assessed grades, more than the 31% of A-level grades at the school. As a result the school’s engineering BTec results have dropped by a grade and a quarter in progress since 2019. “There have been so many basic clerical errors, but when we ring Pearson and tell them, they just say that we need to appeal,” McCormack said. But Pearson said it had accepted “the overwhelming majority” of assessed grades, and that only around 0.5% of its grades were adjusted downwards across the country. Sharon Hague, Pearson’s senior vice-president, said BTec grading relied on internally assessed units rather than exams, and were not subject to the same statistical moderation as A-levels. “We have seen very stable outcomes for BTec and other vocational qualifications,” Hague said. Ofqual said in a statement: “A small proportion of [vocational qualifications] did use a statistical standardisation approach similar the one used for A-levels, and those awarding organisations are reviewing their approach in light of what has been decided about GCSEs and A-levels yesterday.” The plight of BTec students was highlighted by the mayors of London and Manchester, as well as by legal activists at the Good Law Project and Foxglove, which have written to Ofqual demanding that BTec students receive equal treatment. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London said: “A high proportion of BTec students are from BAME communities and low-income families. They have already suffered immeasurably from Covid-19 and the least they deserve is to be given fair results.” Several schools and colleges said that some of their students had still not yet received their level 3 BTec results promised last Thursday. A spokesperson for Pearson said: “We are aware that some BTec students experienced a delay in receiving their results and we understand the frustration this must have caused. We are working closely with the students and colleges involved to look into this urgently and provide any outstanding results as soon as we can.” But Jolyon Maugham, director of the Good Law Project, said: “Delays which damage students’ prospects of university places are totally unacceptable. We will continue to push for – and if necessary begin further proceedings to ensure – fairness.”