Is SNP set to permanently scrap almost ALL exams?

SCOTLAND’S ‘out of date’ exams system should be scrapped, according to the SNP Government’s education advisers.

A report by the International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA) calls for greater use of continuous assessment – and says any exam-like elements should be more like driving tests, ‘taken and retaken’ as required.

Claiming current tests belong in the ‘19th and 20th’ centuries, it calls for changes to be introduced after the cancellation of all school exams for a second year because of the Covid pandemic.

Education Secretary John Swinney welcomed the report, saying it could help the country ‘use the pandemic as an opportunity to develop a more resilient education system’. But opponents urged against any bid to scrap examinations entirely.

Tory education spokesman Jamie Greene said more ‘knowledge-based learning in schools would be very welcome’, but he added: ‘Rigorous assessment is essential to giving pupils the brightest possible future.

‘ Getting rid of exams entirely would see our schools slide further down international league tables and let down a whole other crop of pupils who want to get good grades and get ahead in their lives.’

The ICEA report says that administering high school exams has been ‘one of the greater challenges to education systems during the pandemic’ and has caused ‘great anxiety and disruption for students, families, schools and universities’. It adds that these problems have ‘exposed underlying issues with established practice’.

It goes on: ‘Building from the learning stimulated by the pandemic, a new balance between internal and external forms of assessment is needed. High school examinations are essentially an out-of-date 19th and 20th century technology operating in a 21st century environment of teaching and learning.

‘Digital technology is transforming our capacities for self-assessment, peer-assessment, shared assessment and continuous assessment. Assessment and examinations can be more continuous, rather than episodic.

‘There may still be components of sit-down examinations, but if these are based on a wide menu of changing, problem-based questions, these can be taken and retaken like driving tests, as needed, throughout the year, rather than in a one-time, highstress, win/lose moment.’

Mr Swinney said: ‘The ICEA recognises the effort and resources going in to narrow attainment gaps and strengthen the teaching profession.

‘It reinforces the issue of equity as the defining agenda of our time, says we have an excellent standing internationally and that Scottish education can be a “global standard bearer in a post-pandemic world”.

‘That is no easy task and the report provides a series of detailed recommendations to help us not just to get back to normal, but to use the pandemic as an opportunity to develop a more resilient education system for the future.’

The ICEA advises the Government on education policies and practices and on how best to achieve ‘excellence and equity’ in the system.

‘Retaken like driving tests’