Scotland’s exam results day has been something of a disaster this year. An already stressful time for anxious pupils has been made worse after hundreds of students across the country received blank email templates instead of their grades – a gaffe which the Scottish Qualifications Authority is scrambling to fix – while a flailing Scottish government struggles to explain why the poverty-related attainment looks worse, and wider, than ever.
The bad news for Scottish students doesn’t end there. 2024’s national exam results don’t just demonstrate that the gap has widened; today’s figures have almost all eclipsed pre-pandemic levels. The overall pass rate for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exam results has plunged again – as it has every year since the pandemic highs in 2020.
Pupils from all backgrounds – whether rich or poor – have achieved worse outcomes than their peers in previous years. It spells trouble for an SNP that only a month ago faced off a frustrated electorate in the national poll and came away rather badly. John Swinney, the current First Minister, has continually talked about tackling child poverty, and yet his country’s schools are failing Scotland’s poorest children.
For Scotland’s most deprived students, things look particularly bad. Since last year, the 20 per cent poorest students have seen their pass rate drop by almost 3 per cent to 68.4 per cent – the lowest since equivalent figures were collected in 2016. For those sitting Highers, the most important exams required for university admission, the pass rate has fallen by just under 3 per cent since last year, with this year’s pass rate only marginally better than the low of 2019. As for Advanced Highers, which are increasingly crucial in the securing of an offer from university, there was a staggering decrease in pass rate of 7.5 per cent since 2023, and over 5 per cent since the last low in 2019.
What does this mean in terms of attainment gap? The difference in pass rates between the top most affluent students and the most deprived is, for every single level of exam, wider than ever. It’s a damning indictment of an SNP government that has consistently overpromised and underdelivered. Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, told the nation when she got the top job that she wanted to be judged on her ability to close the poverty-related attainment gap. Despite the gap narrowing in 2020 – after another SNP government slip-up that led to the reversal of downgraded results – Sturgeon wasn’t able to make sufficient progress on this before she left office. Her successor Swinney has his work cut out if he is to turn things around before the Holyrood election in 2026.
The Scottish government has proposed that a new exam body replace the current Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) in 2025, to be called Qualifications Scotland. It’s one of a number of changes put forward in a new Education (Scotland) Bill that was published last month, including a reform of Education Scotland to focus more on curriculum changes. But many have argued the government is moving too slowly on an issue that needs serious attention. The SNP administration has already spent almost £1 million on commissioning education and exam system reviews, and yet there has been no material improvement in pupil performance. Today’s results show that it is action – not more paperwork – that is desperately required.
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