Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Education chief full of praise for pupils
Youngsters helped force U-turn on exams fiasco
North Lanarkshire’s education convener has commended campaigning pupils from the area who helped force a Scottish Government U-turn on their downgraded exam results.
Thousands of students from the area are now awaiting new certificates with their revised Higher, Advanced Higher and Nationals grades, which are being restored to their teachers’ estimates following an outcry about the controversial SQA moderation process.
Education secretary John Swinney announced at Holyrood last week that the process – which saw nearly a quarter of grades reduced to achieve pass-rate consistency with previous years, disproportionately affecting deprived areas – was being abandoned.
Praising pupils from the local area, Councillor Frank McNally said: “The SNP’s U-turn on the exams fiasco is welcome.
“But credit must go to North Lanarkshire’s outstanding school pupils, many of whom protested against the appalling injustice dealt to them by the SNP government.
“Thankfully, those pupils will now get the results that they deserve and we are pleased that John Swinney has heeded our calls for an independent review to ensure that this never happens to any school pupil in North Lanarkshire again.”
Figures compiled by the council’s administration showed that a total of 4164 of the individual Higher results originally issued in North Lanarkshire last Tuesday were lower than the overall A, B or C grades that were predicted by teachers.
Among those, 1481 subject grades were downgraded from estimated A- C passes to a D or no award, compared to 98 results which were upgraded to a higher A, B or C pass.
Of the North Lanarkshire total of downgraded results, 793 were moved between nar rower bands within the lettered gradings, but students still received the overall result predicted by education staff.
Councillor McNally said Higher moderation affected 2900 young people or 46 per cent of candidates in the authority, and that he had been “inundated with complaints”.
He also criticised council SNP group leader Tom Johnston’s original defence of the moderation system, calling it a “disgraceful attempt to blame teachers for his government’s mess”.
The opposition group leader, a former teacher, had said that “the pass rates have to look credible” and had added: “Justice for individuals who have cases for reconsideration will come through the appeals process.”
No appeals now need to be lodged, with all candidates being automatically upgraded to the predicted grades submitted by their teachers.
A minority of results which were upgraded through moderation will remain in place rather than reverting to the lower grade.
Mr Swinney told the Scottish Parliament : “We set out to ensure that the system was fair and that it was credible, but we did not get it right for all young people.
“All downgraded awards will be withdrawn.
“We were concerned that grade inflation, through accepting the original estimates from teachers, would run the risk of undermining the value of qualifications in 2020.
“But that is outweighed by the concern that young people, particularly from workingclass backgrounds, may lose faith in the education system and form the view that, no matter how hard they work, the system is against them.”
He spoke of “the massive disadvantage [of ] Covid” for pupils and said: “Perhaps our approach to maintaining standards for the 2020 cohort did not fully understand the trauma of Covid for that year group and did not appreciate that a different approach might help to even things out.”
Credit must go to North Lanarkshire’s pupils, many who protested against this appalling injustice