SNP DAMNED OVER EXAMS SHAMBLES

++ Children’s tsar in furious riposte ++ Former SQA chief demands probe ++ Pupils planning mass demonstration ++ Scottish results disaster forces U-turn in England ++

NICOLA Sturgeon faced mounting pressure last night over Scotland’s skewed exam marking system.

It follows a wave of condemnation over the downgrading of 124,000 pupils’ results.

Scotland’s children’s tsar Bruce Adamson blasted the ‘unfair’ way pupils were marked on the basis of how well their schools had done in the past.

Former exams chief Sir Iain McMillan called for an independent investigation into the fiasco, which saw the most deprived students hit the hardest.

The First Minister and Education Secretary John Swinney faced further humiliation after England’s exams regulator quickly moved to introduce powers to protect clever pupils at poorly performing schools.

Growing anger among parents and pupils will see a protest held in Glasgow’s George Square today.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie called for Mr Swinney to enlist Audit Scotland to investigate the measures used by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to determine grades.

He said: ‘It is unacceptable that pupils have been downgraded for exams they

did not sit, based on the historical performance of their school.

‘We must have confidence in the process used by the Scottish Qualifications Authority – especially if next year’s exams are cancelled too and this exercise has to be repeated.

‘A thorough investigation by Audit Scotland should be done to rectify these problems and ensure lessons have been learned.

‘Young people have made tremendous sacrifices over the past six months. They do not deserve to see their futures carved up by a computer algorithm based on where they happen to live.’

Children and Young People’s Commissioner Mr Adamson said concerns about the way pupils had their performance downgraded by the exams quango ‘must be addressed’ or there could be ‘life-changing consequences’.

He demanded every appeal is based on the coursework and performance of each individual pupil, rather than the past results of their school.

He also raised concerns that it will be ‘challenging’ for the appeals system to be able to deal with the expected flood of re-examination requests in time for pupils to be able to take up places at university.

Sir Iain, former vice-chairman of the under-fire SQA, said Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education should launch an investigation so that any mistakes ‘are not repeated’.

It comes as Miss Sturgeon pledged appeals would be based on the performance of the pupil.

Under the SQA system, 124,564 pupils had their grades lowered from those recommended by their teachers because of their school’s previous exam performance.

Mr Adamson said the grading approach taken is ‘really concerning and needs to be addressed’.

He said he first raised concerns about the approach when schools closed in March.

He added: ‘With the moderation affecting a quarter of children and young people downwards, we need to get every one of those young people the chance to have their achievements properly assessed because the moderation process seems to have been very unfair to individuals.

‘We trusted teachers to give a true and honest assessment of where children and young people were at.

‘They did that in good faith and the moderation system, based on how schools have done previously, has been unfair on individual children.

‘So we need to make sure they have that direct right of appeal and that that appeal is based on the achievement of the child, taking all of their work over the year into account, not just how their school did in exams last year.’

Mr Adamson added: ‘We need to be supporting all children to move on and make sure that the damage that has been done in the last few months in the name of public health doesn’t have life-changing consequences.’

He also said it would be ‘challenging’ for the appeals system to cope, adding: ‘We are going to need to resource that appeals process significantly in order to move quickly.’

The coronavirus pandemic has created an ‘education crisis’, he said, and urgent action is needed to prevent a ‘generational catastrophe’.

Sir Iain, who was on the board of the SQA from 19962006 and served as vice-chairman for the final two years, pointed out an independent probe was launched in 2000 during a controversy around thousands of incorrect certificates being issued to pupils. He said: ‘I think it would be a good thing for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education (HMCIE) to review what has happened and give a verdict.

‘If HMCIE were to give the SQA a clean bill of health then that would help to restore confidence in the system.

‘Were HMCIE to find fault with the exam process this year, I think it would be helpful if they made recommendations as to how this could be avoided in future.’

Miss Sturgeon has argued results would not have been ‘credible’ if the pass rate of the most deprived pupils had risen by the 19.8 per cent estimated by teachers.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Scotland’s exams have never previously been cancelled, so the SQA had no alternative but to put in place an alternative certification model this year.

‘Moderation is an annual process and ensures the integrity of awards and fairness to learners. Teachers and lecturers applied their professional judgments and three out of every four grade estimates were not adjusted.’

‘Life-changing consequences’

IHAVE just read a letter a teenage schoolgirl from the Outer Hebrides sent to John Swinney. I don’t know what the Education Secretary makes of what Eva Peteranna had to say but I can tell you it broke my heart.

We have heard much from the First Minister lately on how we should view statistics. Do not forget, Nicola Sturgeon is fond of saying, that behind the figures are real people with life stories, hopes, dreams and families who loved them. Each death from coronavirus is an individual tragedy.

She is right about that. And just as we must not consider the dead as mere statistics, nor should we do the living such a disservice.

Let us not, then, consider Eva Peteranna’s disappointing Higher results for 2020 to be only five of 124,564 grades moderated downwards by a pitiless Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) algorithm in order to reflect her school’s past performance. Let us consider her as an individual with hopes and dreams.

‘Growing up in the islands we were always told that we needed to work harder than those on mainland if we want to achieve our goals, but also that we should never let it get in the way of where we want to go in life...’ the pupil from Sgoil Lionacleit school in Benbecula tells Mr Swinney.

And already I am almost shaking with rage. I have guessed that Eva did indeed work hard, knew exactly where she wanted to go in life.

‘… so as a pupil who has always been determined to go to university and work in my dream job in the medical field, I worked hard.’ Her letter goes on to detail a difficult fourth year where staff shortages left her with no regular teacher in History, Chemistry and Biology. That meant studying the syllabuses in her own time.

Nevertheless she achieved As in all three at National 5 level and equalled or outperDoes formed her predicted grades in every subject she took. Entering fifth year, Eva tells Mr Swinney, her resolve stiffened: ‘I was even more determined to maintain my high grades to make getting into my preferred university as easy as possible for me.’

Most evenings, she stayed behind after school to take advantage of extra tuition and be sure she had understood everything taught that day.

She was undeterred when her predicted grades indicated she would score only three As in her Highers and achieve a B and a C in the other two subjects. Why? Because her performance in fourth year had given her confidence in her ability.

Who knows, with a work ethic like Eva’s, a dream to strive for and the sure knowledge of a direct relationship between exam success and hours invested in it, Eva could have been looking at a clean sweep of five As this week.

Devastated

Her Higher results – as determined by the SQA in lieu of exams which were cancelled because of Covid-19 – are as follows: English B; Biology B; Chemistry D; Psychology F; Modern Studies B.

‘To say I am devastated is an understatement,’ this diligent schoolgirl, this credit to her island and potential future credit to the medical profession tells the man whose job it is to run education in this country.

‘To have my grades knocked down so significantly has not only made me have to completely reconsider my career path but has also made me lose confidence in myself.’

It is there that my heart truly breaks. I went to an excellent school in St Andrews and was given every opportunity to succeed. My parents paid for private tuition in my weaker subjects and they cajoled, pleaded, sometimes even begged me to show the kind of dedication to my school work that Eva has in spades.

I was having none of it and went on, deservedly, to achieve lower grades in my Highers than I think I was capable of. Academia was less competitive back then, though, and my grades were still just good enough to get me into Aberdeen University. Only there and only in my final two years did I really apply myself.

The academic environment my daughter grew up in was very different but then, so was she, thankfully, in her attitude to her school work.

I put that largely down to the influence of her mother – a parent who herself had gone to an indifferent school where academic success was neither expected nor enthusiastically encouraged. Yet she shone in every subject through sheer force of determination not to be defined by her postcode, to be the best she could be.

But it was I who made the call to my daughter’s school a few years back when she was denied a clean sweep of As at Higher by a quirk of the marking system. The Chemistry exam, it turned out, had a greater percentage than expected of A passes so, to remedy this, the SQA raised the threshold for an A from 70 per cent to 73 per cent. Her A became a B.

I was livid and told her teachers so. My daughter had aimed for five As, put in the work, achieved her objective and, when the matter was out of her hands, been marked down because the SQA had moved the goalposts. Disappointments such as these live with a person.

If ‘livid’ suitably describes my reaction to my daughter’s Higher experience, how should we characterise the appropriate parental response to the injustice Eva has suffered? our lexicon contain such a word?

Yet the schoolgirl is lucky in one sense. She has a family who care deeply enough about her education to be sent into the further reaches of fury over the shameful manner in which the SNP government and the SQA let her down.

Not all parents show such attention to their children’s academic performance. Indeed, it is often in deprived areas high-achieving pupils find themselves most isolated – scoffed at by unambitious schoolmates, unnurtured by parents who see A grades as no great cause for pride.

Responsibility

Who in government speaks for these pupils, today, I wonder? Who will restore their shattered confidence on learning that self-betterment is not for them because they went to a below average school? Who will contradict the parents who tell their kids they told them so, that education is a stitch-up, that people like them don’t go to university?

‘I understand that it is my responsibility to work to achieve what I want to in life and it is for that reason that I have decided to write to you …’ Eva tells Mr Swinney towards the end of her letter.

And, again, I don’t know about the Education Secretary, but she had me close to tears from the beginning.

How is it that a supposedly Left-leaning Government, committed to social equality, pleading to be judged above all on education and boasting about creating a fairer country for young people can sign off on this abject betrayal of its mission statement?

Eva, I honestly don’t know. But I know this: broken hearts demand careful consideration of their origins and – if we are not to blame – a healthy mistrust going forward of the elements which brought us to this. Through your tears, take a long, hard look at those government types defending the indefensible in this national exam debacle. Remember their faces well.

They are promising you a better Scotland.