Exam results threw dreams into doubt

Even in normal circumstances the day that letter containing your exam results drops onto the door mat, or the text message pings into your inbox, is a harrowing one for young people.

This year doubly so.

The coronavirus pandemic struck just as pupils were gearing up for their exam season and suddenly the future looked uncertain.

The decision not to press ahead with traditional exams was the right one

Neither pupil nor staff safety could be guaranteed in the current circumstances.

But what replaced that system has dished out a bitter injustice to thousands of young people.

Since exams could not proceed as planned the SQA asked teachers to estimate, based on coursework, prelims and their professional assessment, what grade their pupils should be awarded. However, the exam body also said there would be a process of “moderation”.

Despite repeated calls from the Greens in Holyrood, the SQA time and time again refused to disclose the exact methodology that would be used in this process. Time and time again my party colleague and education spokesperson Ross Greer warned the SQA that any moderation based on a schools previous performance would likely disadvantage pupils from poorer areas.

On results day, when it was already too late, he was sadly proven correct. Pupils in Scotland’s most deprived areas saw their pass rates reduced by

15.2 per cent. Those in the richest suffered by less than half that amount.

That clear injustice shouldn’t undermine the fact that pupils throughout Stirling schools have put in an extraordinary effort in the last academic year. Even with the SQA’S unfair system the number of pupils achieving at least three Highers is up on last year and the number of pupils getting fiver Highers has held steady.

But in every school there will be pupils who haven’t got the grades they expected, the grades they knew they were capable of if only they’d been given a chance. Instead their efforts, talents and ambitions have been fed into the SQA’S machines and come out tattered and torn on the other side. The statistics hide the personal side of this debacle.

An enormous amount of damage has already been done and many young people’s faith in the fairness of the system will have been rightly shaken but it’s not too late for the SQA and the Scottish Government to mitigate some of the worst impact.

Since it became clear traditional exams wouldn’t be possible the Greens have been calling on the SQA to commit to a “no detriment” policy similar to that adopted by Scottish universities to ensure their students weren’t treated unfairly.

This would have prevented pupils from having to deal with the stress of this injustice and would have avoided entrenching the inequality already sadly baked into our education system.

The Scottish

Government have, finally, acknowledged that mistakes have been made but they were warned.

This didn’t have to happen at all.

In these uncertain times our young people deserved better than to have their ambitions and dreams dismissed by a formula that punishes them simply on the basis of where they’re from.

Faith in system has been shaken - but it is not too late