All exams may be cancelled till 2022 warns Swinney

SCOTS pupils could face a second year without sitting exams, the Education Secretary warned yesterday.

John Swinney said the coronavirus crisis – which has forced schools to stay closed since March and led to the cancellation of this year’s tests – has now put the future of next year’s assessments in doubt.

He said planning continues for the exams to go ahead as normal but admitted that there is no certainty on whether this will be able to happen.

Mr Swinney admitted ‘educational outcomes will be jeopardised’ – adding the decision to reopen schools from August 11 on a part-time basis only is mainly down to the need for two-metre social distancing.

Addressing Holyrood’s education committee, he said: ‘Planning for the 2021 exam diet is proceeding as we speak for there to be delivery of the traditional examination diet in the spring.

‘The SQA [Scottish Qualifications Authority] has already indicated to schools, and will follow this up with formal guidance, about the importance of collecting information and evidence that can support the judgments about the achievements of young people on an ongoing basis during the next school year.

‘That is important should we find ourselves in the position that we cannot successfully deliver an exam diet in the spring of 2021.

‘So although we are planning for an exam diet, I cannot say with absolute certainty that it will be able to take place. We are asking schools to gather evidence on an ongoing basis to support judgments that may well be made, or be required to be made, in the spring of 2021.’

Teachers have called for next year’s exams to be cancelled or postponed as part of measures to ease the logjam created by the coronavirus lockdown.

The EIS and Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) unions, which represent the majority of high school teachers in the country, have pushed for a shake-up of how grades are awarded to pupils.

The SSTA has said exams should be cancelled again, with teachers awarding grades based on pupil performance.

The EIS has called for S4 pupils to be spared exams next year and instead work over two years to sit the tests at the appropriate level in S5.

Schools are expected to adopt a ‘blended learning’ approach when they reopen after the summer, with pupils likely to attend two days a week, then learn from home on two other days.

Gail Ross, Nationalist MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, told Mr Swinney a lot of parents are ‘absolutely dreading’ the blended learning system after ‘struggling’ with home schooling.

The Education Secretary said he wants children to be in school ‘for as close to 50 per cent’ of the normal time as is possible, although he added that in some circumstances this will not be possible because of the twometre social distancing rules.

He admitted this could be a particular issue in the most popular schools, which already operate above capacity.

But Mr Swinney insisted that going against the scientific advice on the two-metre rule in schools, when it has been adopted by the Scottish Government in other areas, would be a ‘recipe for anarchy’.

He said: ‘I don’t want the blended learning model to go on a minute longer than required. I do not want this to be a longterm educational model.

‘I don’t think it is the best educational model but it is the best educational model in the circumstances that we face, because I cannot ignore the public health advice and issues that we face.’

Green education spokesman Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, said the blended learning approach will ‘inevitably’ have an impact on children’s schooling.

Mr Swinney conceded that returning to classes part-time in August, with some learning also being done from home, will mean that ‘educational outcomes will be jeopardised’.

He said: ‘The current model for the delivery of education is not as effective as the model we had prior to Covid.’

‘Outcomes will be jeopardised’