Inga Sæland rejects claims of flaws in grading reform

Education and Children’s Affairs Minister Inga Sæland has rejected claims that anything went wrong in the decision to replace letter grades with numbers in compulsory schools, telling mbl.is that criticism is based on an unfinished process.

The Constitutional and Supervisory Committee has opened an inquiry into the decision and asked the ministry for documents supporting it. Committee chair Bryndís Haraldsdóttir said the committee had received reports that there may have been problems with the decision-making process.

“No, no, nothing went wrong. This is just a simple change,” Sæland said.

She said the old letter-grading system remained embedded throughout the national curriculum, which would take time to revise. The current transition period could cause uncertainty, she said, but the new regulation and completed curriculum would bring greater clarity.

Feedback on changes to the grading scale for 10th grade has been broadly critical. Respondents said the plans lacked clear guidance for teachers, sufficient time for implementation and transparency for parents and other family members, making it difficult to achieve the minister’s aims of consistency, greater equality among students and clearer grades.

Sæland said she understood the concerns but considered much of the criticism premature because the regulation had not yet been issued and work on the curriculum was incomplete. She said the change would neither be delayed nor abandoned, and that 10th-grade students would receive final grades in numbers this spring.

The committee has asked the ministry for information about how consultation was carried out. What happens next will depend on the ministry’s responses, Haraldsdóttir said.