Education bodies to be replaced by 2024
The SQA and Education Scotland will be scrapped and replaced with a new qualifications body and new education agency by summer 2024, the education secretary has confirmed.
It comes as Professor Ken Muir’s report on education reform in Scotland outlines a “consensual view” from pupils that the past two years of exams have been an “absolute nightmare”. The move to replace the two agencies with a national agency for education and a new qualifications body, provisionally named Qualifications Scotland, was confirmed by Shirley-anne Somerville after The Scotsman revealed the plans.
The education secretary also set out plans to set up a new independent inspectorate for Scottish education.
Operating models of the new organisations will be developed by winter 2022, with the new bodies being fully operational in 2024.
The new examinations body will take on the SQA’S remit for the design and delivery of qualifications such as Nat 5s and Highers. It will also take on responsibility for the exam diet, alongside certification.
Profmuiralsorecommended the examinations body should include more representation from pupils, teachers and others in education.
The SQA has been under fiercecriticismforallegedlyfailing pupils. In 2020, the exams quango used a now infamous algorithmtolowerthegradesof thousandsofpupilsafterexams were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Last year, it cancelled Nat 5 exams, but committed to physical exams for Highers and Advancedhigherstotakeplace, only to U-turn months before exams were set to begin.
On Tuesday, the SQA was forcedtodefenditsrevisionsupport guides for the 2022 exams, which were branded “patronising” for reminding pupils to read the question.
Prof Muir’s report criticised the “rotation of top administrative and executive positions in Scotland’s education system among a small number of individuals”.
However, under questioning from MSPS on whether the leadership of both the SQA and Education Scotland would remain in leadership roles of thenewbodies,mssomerville was equivocal.
Proposing a single national education agency, Prof Muir said policy advice to ministers on education must take place “much closer” to the teaching profession than it does now.
However, the Scottish Governmentisunderstoodtohave said it will not transfer current education policy responsibilities to the new agency.
Ms Somerville also confirmed the creation of an inspectorate that will evaluate Scotland’s education system and report annually on its performance .
However, the Scottish Government plans were ridiculed by opposition parties, with the Scottish Conservatives labelling them “depressing and hollow”.
Oliver Mundell, the party’s education spokesperson, said: "The public are not going to be fooled by this spin when they recognise the magnitude of the problems in education that this SNP Government have created and exacerbated.”
Michael Marra, Labour education spokesperson, said the statement should have begun with an apology.