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A-levels go gender neutral: Leading exam board allows students to opt out of boys and girls classifications
Posted on: 2018-08-14 20:30:00
For the first time this summer, teenagers who do not identify with either gender are able to request that male and female flags are removed from EdExcel’s system.
EdExcel, which is owned by the education company Pearson, has also axed gender categories completely from the documents that students receive on results day with their grades.
Compiling information about students’ gender enables exam boards to examine trends in results over time, such as whether boys or girls are dominating the top gradeshow many girls are taking STEM subjects compared to boys.
However, the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents the UK’s major exam boards, said that the introduction of a gender neutral option would not affect national trends since numbers would be too low to have an impact.
EdExcel is the first major exam board to have made changes to accommodate non-binary pupils, but others intend to follow suit.
OCR and AQA are both examining their systems to see whether similar changes can be made, The Daily Telegraph understands.
A spokesperson for Pearson said: "We are continuing to look at how non-binary students can have the option of signalling that they do not wish to be classed as either male or female when they register for a qualification and receive results with Pearson Edexcel.
“For this summer we have removed the gender flag altogether from the documents students receive from us, and we are giving them the option of removing the male/female flag on our qualifications systems by requesting this through their school or college."
Pearson said it is working on a number of initiatives with the charity Stonewall aimed at boosting “diversity and inclusion”.
Earlier this year, Pearson announced that its school textbooks will be updated to include "same sex" couples in their questions. It said it will update all of its products and resources to ensure they are "LGBT inclusive".
Exam boards already have a process in place for transgender student who transition after sitting their exams, and want to change the information on their certificate to reflect their new identity.