BTec delays: Exam board Pearson apologises to students waiting for results

An exam board has apologised after some BTec students did not receive their results as expected last Thursday, throwing university places into doubt.

Pearson said a "very small percentage" of its BTec students were affected.

Hundreds of thousands of students received their A-level, BTec and T-level results this week.

One student told BBC News he has now missed his chance of a clearing place at his chosen university.

James, 18, from Sheffield, did a BTec in uniformed public services at Sheffield College.

As his friends celebrated their results on Thursday, he was sat refreshing the online results page.

"I was told I would hopefully get them by the end of the day but nothing came - it's been really stressful," he said.

"It's kind of just going around in a loop - not having my results, asking people where they are, being told to wait and still not getting them."

James, who applied to study law and criminology at Sheffield Hallam University, still does not know if he has secured a place.

His plans to trade-up in clearing and read law at the University of Sheffield have fallen through as a result of the delay, he said.

Another exam board, OCR, has also had delays issuing Cambridge Technicals results to some students.

It says it will continue to process results over the weekend and it has "delivered more than a thousand results to schools and colleges within the last 24 hours."

BTecs - Business and Technology Education Council qualifications - and Cambridge Technicals are vocational courses which are largely assessed through practical learning, with written exams accounting for just a small element of the final mark.

In order to receive an overall grade, the marks from every module are required.

Pearson has not said how many students are waiting, but that it is a "very small percentage".

The exam board said it was working around the clock with colleges, adding staff would "be here all weekend working to get results out as soon as we can".

It added that UCAS, the university and college admissions service, said the best thing these students can do is contact their university of choice directly and ask them to hold their place.

The exams regulator Ofqual says it has "every sympathy" with students yet to receive a result.

The chief executive of the Association of Colleges, David Hughes, says the delay has put extra pressure on students.

"It is really stressful at the best of times but when a delay happens like this, I think it is terrible," he said.