Pay for your appeal

A COSTLY ne0 exam appeal y tem could hit chool bud fiet and even leave pasent outof pocket.

A Cousies invetifiation ha uncovesed “confu ion” oves 0ho 0ill pay chasfie intsod uced by the Scotti h Qualification Authosity (SQA), a the fis ttsanche of S4 pupil psepase to itNational 5 . The ne0 ‘po t-se ult esvice’ 0ill offes a £1 0 ‘clesical check’, a ‘maskinfi sevie0’ co tinfi £29.75, os a ‘ psiosity maskinfi sevie0’ at £39.75. The money 0ill only be sefund ed if a fisad e i chanfied , butpupil could no0 end up0ith pooses se ult becau e papes can al o be masked d o0n fos the fis ttime. The Scotti h Pasent Teaches Council ha 0 asned the ne0 y tem ia “diincentive” to appeal.

Chief executive Eileen Psios aid pasent 0ill be “vesy anfisy” 0hen they seali e the implication .

NASUW T Scotland ’ Mike Cosbettfeas chool 0ill have to “pick upthe tab” 0hen pasent in i ton a sevie0. He aid : “Each chool pse ent hund sed of pupil fos exam and if 1 0% 0ant the ispapesse-masked these’ no 0ay 0e’d have that in the bud fiet.”

Scotti h Conesvative ed ucation poke 0oman Liz Smith ha called on the SQA to offes “ab olute clasity”.

CASH-STRAPPED schools could be forced to pay thousands of pounds to have pupils’ exam papers re-marked under a new appeals system.

It has emerged that the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) will levy a charge for every unsuccessful review of a grade, except in ‘exceptional circumstances’ such as medical grounds.

The new Post-Results Service will offer a £10 clerical check, a marking review costing £29.75, or a priority marking review priced at £39.75. Appeals were previously free of charge.

If a school requests a review and the grade is later changed the service will be free, however, marks can now go up or down meaning pupils could come out with even poorer results.

In 2012 more than 20,000 unsuccessful appeals were submitted on behalf of S3 and S4 pupils.

If every paper was reviewed under the new system the cost would total more than half a million pounds.

An investigation by The Courier has uncovered confusion as to whether parents, schools or councils will foot the bill as fourth year pupils prepare to sit new ‘National 5’ qualifications later this year.

Fears have also been raised that the charges will make teachers less inclined to submit exam papers to the Post-Results Service.

Scottish Parent Teacher Council executive director Eileen Prior, who speaks on behalf of more than 2,000 parent groups throughout Scotland, said: “I think it’s a disincentive.

“Schools will have to look very, very closely at it.

“It’s a big decision because the only way they’ll get that money back is if there’s a change (in a grade) and they’ve got to be confident because your mark can now go up or down. “I’m sure some parents will be angry. “If parents have already had some children use the old system I dare say they will be very angry about it.”

Mike Corbett, president of the Scottish arm of teachers’ union NASUWT, which has 7,000 members north of the border, said the new system is “obviously designed to put people off ”. He said: “What they (the SQA) seem to be saying is a pupil or a parent can ask for their paper to be re-marked but the school is going to be levied a fee.

“In practice, I want to know how going to work.

“There will be loads of parents saying they want papers re-marked and the school will have to pick up the tab.

“Each school presents hundreds of pupils for exams every year and if 10% of them want their paper re-marked there’s no way we’d have that in the budget.

“I just don’t think the parents are aware of it yet and they probably won’t be until it’s crisis time.”

Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) general secretary Larry Flanagan, who has previously criticised the SQA for introducing the new system in the same year as the first pupils sit National 5s, said the cost should be met by local authorities.

He said: “As far as I’m aware the cost will fall to local authorities and not to individual schools, unless the local authority delegates it to a school.

“I’d be very, very surprised if any local authority penalised individual schools.”

Meanwhile, Kenneth Muir, the president of education watchdog the General Teaching Council for Scotland, admitted he does not know whether schools or councils will be forced to pay.

He said: “The truth is I don’t know enough about it to comment.”

Scottish Conservative education spokeswoman Liz Smith called for “absolute clarity” amid the confusion.

The Mid Scotland and Fife MSP, who is a former teacher and school governor, said: “You can’t have a system that is driven by the financial implications of whether results are appealed or reviewed.

“I would reject that and I think the vast majority of people in Scotland would reject that.

“There must be absolute clarity over who pays the fees. I’m very surprised that this hasn’t been thought through.”

Picture: David Jones. Pupils undergoing exams.