The SNP must face scrutiny following the SQA results day fiasco
For thousands of children, the long-awaited results day for SQA Highers has been a day of disappointment, failure, and anger. 125000 children saw their grades lowered, and coincidentally, most of them lived in less affluent areas. The most deprived schools saw only 69.9% of A-C grades whilst the estimate was nearing 86%. For many, this was the day that should have been celebrated. Instead, it brought despair.
It’s interesting, considering that the exams were cancelled, and the grades were estimated by SQA based on the teachers’ recommendations and the overall performance of the student. That’s not all, though. SQA Methodology document reports that the grades were supposed to match the school’s historical attainment level for the specific grade for the specific course. Which basically means that it didn’t matter how well a pupil was performing – at the end of the day the grades needed to match the attainment level of that school.
This fiasco seems like a culmination of years of deterioration in the Scottish education system. It’s not only SQA that should be scrutinised – it’s also the SNP.
Westminster has already announced that if the students aren’t pleased with their results, they will have an opportunity to resit the exam at some point this year, which gives them a window to prove their abilities. However, Scotland only offers a bizarre appeal process. What about the children whose parents spent money on tutors, sometimes amounting to £1200? Is that going to go to waste if their children not only did not manage to get their intended grade but also failed to get into their dream university? The stakes are too high. Too many families stricken by poverty have tried to help their children to acquire future they were never able to have. Why is the SNP allowing the vicious circle of poverty to continue?
This is not the first time the SNP has failed in education. Scotland has fallen behind England consistently over the years in Maths and Science. Lindsay Paterson, the Professor of Education Policy at Edinburgh University confirms that “Scotland’s results are even worse than three years ago when the outcome was widely seen as dismaying.”. Even though Scotland has been performing fine regarding reading, it is certainly underperforming in many other areas.
The idea that schools were simply closed with no alternative teaching provided is one of the biggest failures regarding the recent SQA outcome. Some students were left with no coursework which led to many months of doing practically nothing. What about children who come from homes where domestic abuse is a daily occurrence and they have no safe haven to avoid this or contact a social worker or a teacher? None of this has been appropriately thought through.
This nonsensical approach meant that people were judged on their past grades which are rarely a reflection of someone’s performance during their actual exam. For a lot of children, prelims are an opportunity to realise at what they’re still lacking, and for others, it’s a reality check so they start revising. No one could have expected that the prelims would be counted so seriously.
This scandal led to the hashtag #ResignNicola trending on Twitter and multiple petitions calling for the grades to be reassessed. Something needs to be done about education and I doubt it will be the SNP that will be able to handle it.
Is there future with the new Scottish Tory leader, Douglass Ross? We shall see. It’s not only him who’s trying to provide a fresh solution and reinvigorated opposition. The Alliance For Unity led by George Galloway is equally frustrated over the SNP failures. The next Scottish Parliamentary election will be a treat. England has proven repeatedly that the Conservatives are simply doing education better. There is hope on the horizon if we will focus on strengthening the union and maintaining a good relationship between England and Scotland. But in order to be able to do this – Nicola Sturgeon must go.
Dinah Kolka
"John Swinney" by Scottish Government is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0