Minister urged to enlist staff to

John Swinney

Education Secretary John Swinney was yesterday urged to enlist more staff to cope with an expected flood of pupils appealing their exam results.

The Scottish Tories said urgent action was needed after reports suggested some appeals might not be decided until next year.

The exams authority have denied the claim but there is expected to be long delays as pupils appeal grades downgraded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

Conservative education spokesman Jamie Greene said the SQA did not have enough staff or resources to process the huge number of appeals expected. About 124,000 estimated grades were lowered by the exams body, with pupils from deprived backgrounds seeing grade estimates drop far more than wealthier pupils.

A timeline posted on the SQA’S internal website last week appeared to show some appeals would take nine months. The May 31, 2021 date, was later removed from the site and the SQA said it was “meaningless data” to allow their online system to work.

Mr Greene said: “The teachers and education experts I have been speaking to are all warning that the SQA simply does not have the resources to deal with the volume of rightly angry pupils it is facing. Pupils, parents and teachers have already been completely let down and confidence in John Swinney has plummeted to new depths.

“This latest fiasco, after years of falling PISA rankings and subject choice constraints, is surely the last straw for Mr Swinney as Education Secretary. But as it stands, the appeals process that Nicola Sturgeon says will fix all of this mess is also doomed to fail – unless the SNP acts now.

“There is no chance the SQA will manage to deliver for every pupil over the next month with their current level of staff. They need more Scottish Government staff and potentially former teachers to be urgently drafted in to help.”