Leeds City College: IT issues cause result uncertainty

Leeds City College is one of the largest further education institutions in England with more than 20,000 students

Students were unable to find out their exam results because of an IT problem caused by a "major server issue".

Leeds City College apologised to a "small minority" of its 20,000 students who had to wait hours for their grades.

The problem affected a number of the college's 1,500 BTec students, with some not knowing whether they had got into the university of their choice.

It comes amid widespread anger after students across the country received lower grades than predicted.

Cathy Hemsley, from Menston, said it took seven hours for her daughter to learn how she had done.

"It's just been awful, we didn't know whether we needed to be phoning clearing, we were just in no man's land," she said.

"All the controversy about whether people are going to get the grades that they deserve or if their grades are going to be downgraded, we weren't even in that position, we weren't even off the starting block."

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On Wednesday, the college advised students studying for Level 3 qualifications that, "with our internet being down," results would be sent out in the post, although admissions service Ucas would receive them as normal.

However, students said that when they went to check the Ucas website they were unable to see whether or not they had got into university.

Students left dozens of comments on the college's Facebook page expressing their frustration with the situation and how it had been communicated.

'Absolutely terrible timing'

The college said it had been unable to send students emails or reply to those it had received because of a "major server issue".

Students were also asked not to come in to collect their results unless they had a specific timeslot due to coronavirus restrictions.

Principal Bill Jones said: "It was absolutely terrible timing, it couldn't have been predicted.

"However, it is only a small minority of our students, the vast majority will have got into their university of choice and won't have been affected."

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