Businesses left baffled by National 4s – claim

Businesses are developing their own exams to test candidates due to confusion over school qualifications, MSPs have heard.

Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) chief executive Janet Brown faced questions at Holyrood on the controversial National 4 qualifications, which have no external exams.

National 4s were brought in as part of the Curriculum for Excellence along with National 5s to replace Standard Grade courses.

Conservative Michelle Ballantyne questioned Ms Brown at the education and skills committee on the extent of SQA’s engagement with employers.

The south Scotland MSP said there was “a lot of confusion” among some businesses over National 4s.

She said: “A lot of em- ployers are telling me that they are going to devise their own assessments when they are trying to recruit people because they really don’t understand it any more.

“So what are you doing about that?”

Ms Brown said businesses were comfortable with the concept of internal and ongoing assessment as used in National 4.

She added: “I think what we’ve seen over the last couple of years is an increasing concern about how National 4 is perceived across the board and we need to go back and have that further discussion with them on that.”

She said the SQA had carried out research on National 4s and there was a difference of opinion on the qualifications across the country, within local authorities, schools and subjects, but a “significant proportion” of teachers believed there should be an external assessment, in some cases exams, at the end.

Scottish Qualifications Authority chief Janet Brown