ABRSM publishes apology over exam booking chaos
Harriet Clifford
Friday, May 6, 2022
Chief executive Chris Cobb says ABRSM is ‘disappointed’ that the booking system has been ‘under-performing’, but wait times are ‘now around 1-10 minutes’ and 17,000 bookings have been made.
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ABRSM has issued an apology for the long wait times and technical problems with its online exam booking system reported yesterday.
Posted via a blog and shared on social media, the apology comes as music teachers continue to express their frustrations caused by trying to book exams for their students.
Chief executive Chris Cobb writes that ABRSM ‘shares that frustration’ and temporary fixes mean that the current wait time is ‘now around 1-10 minutes’. He adds: ‘We’ll continue to put in place additional fixes ahead of the next practical booking period later this year.’
As part of the statement, Cobb writes that ABRSM is ‘disappointed’, particularly as the booking system ‘had largely stabilised and had performed well for the last two booking periods’.
'This has been down to the intensive work we’ve put into overhauling our IT infrastructure and placing more emphasis on the feedback from users to put flexibility and convenience into your hands.'
He adds that ‘hundreds of changes’ made over the last year have ‘largely gone unnoticed’, as it is ‘rare for anyone to comment on a good experience’.
As confirmed yesterday, the issues were caused by a failed update to the mapping system. Cobb writes: ‘We won’t apologise for trying to make these changes to help those booking exams but we can only say how truly sorry we are that it has caused these queuing issues this time.
‘In spite of these issues, we are pleased to report that over 17,000 bookings did make it through over the first two days – thank you for continuing to work with us.’
A spokesperson from ABRSM has told MT that the exam board is ‘not in a position’ to compensate teachers for the time spent queuing.
