Education 2021 National 5 exams cancelled
NEXT year’s National 5 exams will be cancelled with Highers and Advanced Higher qualifications pushed back due to Covid-19,
Education Secretary John Swinney has said.
The move means young people who were due to sit the tests will be assessed based on coursework instead. It came as Mr Swinney was accused of “spinning a narrative to save his neck” after he asked officials to “do lots of digging” to show young people were not being impacted at the height of this year’s exam results fiasco.
JOHN Swinney has been accused of “spinning a narrative to save his neck” after he asked officials to “do lots of digging” to show young people were not being impacted at the height of the exams fiasco.
Next year’s National 5 exams have been cancelled after an independent review of this year’s situation called for the action.
But Higher and Advanced Highers exams will go ahead in
2021 if possible – although “contingency plans” will be drawn up to enable teacher estimates to be used in the event they are not able to be held.
Shadow education spokesman Jamie Greene claimed “the towel has been thrown in already” by the Scottish Government, adding that he was “not convinced that full justification has been offered”.
The decision, announced by the Education Secretary, comes following recommendations by Professor Mark Priestly in his independent review of this year’s row.
Mr Swinney said that pressing ahead with this year’s exams would be “too big a risk to take”, adding that “it simply would not be fair”.
The Education Secretary was forced into a U-turn and apology after thousands of students saw their initial teacher estimates downgraded.
The methodology used by the SQA impacted pupils from less affluent backgrounds more harshly as a school’s past performance was taken into account in moderation.
In his report, Mr Priestly points to emails between the Scottish Government and the SQA which “suggests that this issue and its explosive implications for public opinion appear to have not been fully grasped by the SQA”, other than pointing to the appeals process. A Government email on August 6 shows that Mr Swinney “had asked that we do lots of digging in the stats to show how young people from deprived backgrounds have not been disadvantaged by the results”.
Labour has accused Mr Swinney of putting his political career ahead of students.
Scottish Labour’s education spokesman Iain Gray said: “This damning email shows the lengths to which the Deputy First Minister went to save his political career.
“This email makes it clear that when John Swinney realised what he had done, his first instinct was to spin his way out of trouble even as thousands of young people were suffering.
“The second most senior member of the Scottish Government should not be using his power to pressure civil servants into providing ammunition for his discredited narrative.”
He added: “John Swinney should have spent the days following the grades fiasco apologising to students and making amends.
“Instead it has been revealed that not only did he spend this time spinning a narrative to save his neck, he pressured others to help do so.”