Covid in Scotland: Will next year's Higher exams go ahead?
- Published
Teachers, pupils and parents are waiting to find out if next year's Higher and Advanced Higher exams are going to be held next May.
The Scottish government has already cancelled National 5s, the more junior exams, and originally said it planned to hold Highers in as normal a way as possible.
However, the government has now said it is looking at the issue of disruption to education around self-isolation periods for Covid-19 and some key meetings are taking place this week that could help ministers make their decision.
Where are we with plans for exams in 2021?
The Highers and Advanced Higher exams diet is currently due to start on 10 May 2021
John Swinney announced the cancellation of the National 5s in October.
The education secretary made a statement to parliament in which he said holding a full exam diet in 2021 was "too big a risk" due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
National 5s will now be decided by "teacher judgement supported by assessment". Schools are still waiting for the full guidance on how to carry this out.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority said plans were currently continuing in preparation for Higher and Advanced Higher exams starting on 10 May 2021.
A spokesman added: "A clear contingency plan is being developed as part of the work being undertaken by the National Qualifications Group 2021, including key checkpoints up to the February break to assess public health advice and its impact on the plans for exams."
The education secretary said he would make a final decision on what was happening with Highers and Advanced Highers by the February break and a "contingency plan" was in place should they need to be called off, which would see the grades awarded on teacher judgement.
As the BBC has been reporting, Covid-19 has meant tens of thousands of pupils have had to isolate at home since schools returned full time in August and particularly since they came back after the October break. The year groups most affected by these absences tend to be S3-S5., external
The worst hit areas are in the central belt, where we have heard from several students who have had multiple periods of isolation through being identified as a contact of someone with Covid-19.
What happened with this year's exams?
Protests were held in the summer over some pupils having their marks downgraded by the SQA
Scotland's exams were cancelled in 2020 - for the first time in history - due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. Results were initially decided using teacher estimated grades which the Scottish Qualifications Authority then moderated based on different schools' past performances.
There was an outcry and protests were held when it emerged that 125,000 of those teacher estimates were downgraded, with claims the system was unfair to children at schools with worse records in exams.
The Scottish government then agreed to accept just the teacher estimates. It also commissioned a review into the issue.
Prof Mark Priestly's report subsequently recommended cancelling the final exams for National 5s next year. , external
What is happening elsewhere in the UK?
All next year's GCSEs and A-level exams have been cancelled in Wales
Wales has cancelled all GCSE and A-level exams in 2021. Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams said it was impossible to guarantee a level playing field for pupils due to the Covid pandemic. Grades will be decided using classroom assessments.
In England, A-levels and GCSEs are due to go ahead next summer, starting three weeks later than usual. Plans for how to manage them in a pandemic are expected to be published later this week.
Northern Ireland is planning to hold all exams in 2021, with its education minister, Peter Weir, saying they represented the "fairest way of judging students".
What could happen now?
John Swinney says he wants every young person to have equal access to learning and teaching this year
This week, John Swinney told MSPs at Holyrood that he appreciated "the necessity for early decision making".
He said the evidence suggested that about 75% of S4-S6 pupils "have experienced no disruption to their learning in sense of having to self-isolate".
He added: "I am very acutely focused on the issue of equity…it's material to my decision making around the Highers and Advanced Highers.
"I have to be satisfied that every young person, no matter their experience of Covid, is able to have the full opportunities for learning and teaching and therefore position themselves to be in the best place to be able to perform in any exam diet in the spring."
The Scottish government's education recovery group, made up of education bodies, teaching unions, college and university representatives, will meet on Wednesday and is expected to discuss exams.
On Friday, there is a planned meeting of the qualifications contingency group, which the government's website states is "invoked in circumstances where there is a system-wide risk to the delivery of the exam diet and the awarding of qualifications." It last met on 5 October.
Neither of these groups are decision-making bodies. They are used to gather information and opinions across education. Ultimately the decision on Highers will be made by Mr Swinney and it is likely that he will inform parliament first if a decision is reached.
There are concerns that some pupils are missing out on classroom learning due to having to self-isolate
It would be very difficult politically for the government to cancel exams five months in advance - the amount of disruption nationally to schooling is broadly in line with the amount that could have been anticipated.
However, there is the very real question of fairness to candidates whose courses have been disrupted.
Would changing the format of exams to allow a greater choice of questions be sufficient? An appeals system could be used to support candidates who had to self-isolate or any candidates who lost out because their teachers had to stay off work.
Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, is calling for a decision to be made sooner rather than later.
General secretary Larry Flanagan said: "Given the growing inequities in teaching time and the ongoing threat to an exam diet, the EIS believes it is prudent to make an early decision to switch to an alternative assessment model, although there are clear workload implications which would require to be addressed."
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