Yesterday the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) gave evidence to MSPs for two hours on a range of issues, including the 2022 exam diet, the government’s plans to replace the SQA, assessment reform and how long it could take before we have like-for-like data to show assessment trends over a number of years.

Here’s what you need to know about the big issues that came up:

What we learned from the SQA

1. The more generous approach to grading could be abandoned in 2023

More generous grading, achieved by adjusting grade boundaries, could be scrapped for the 2023 exams, SQA chief executive and chief examiner Fiona Robertson revealed. The SQA confirmed in April that the modifications to courses and assessments put in place in response to Covid would continue this year - but at Wednesday’s education committee meeting, Robertson said no decision had been made on whether marking would remain more “generous” in 2023.

She said: “We have confirmed modifications to assessment; we need to reflect on the experience of 2022 in relation to generous awarding.”

2. The pre-pandemic approach to assessment could be back in 2023-24

Organisations such as the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) have made the case for retaining Covid modifications to courses and assessment in 2023-24. The SSTA argues that there is little point in reverting to the full breadth of assessment for just a year, given that the SQA is set to be replaced after the 2024 exam diet.

However, Ms Robertson said that in 2023-24 she favours a return to pre-pandemic assessment arrangements and courses.

She said that in many subjects it was the coursework element that had been pared back or removed to free up more time for learning and teaching last year. But she added that there was “a lot of support for coursework” and for ensuring that young people have the ability to undertake practical work, and she would like “to see that move back as soon as we can”.

3. Appeals and the threat of strike action disruption

This year the SQA has received over 55,000 standard appeals, said Ms Robertson. The last time external exams were held in 2019 there were 11,528 appeals (2.3 per cent of entries); last year there were 3,483 appeals (0.67 per cent of entries). Ms Robertson said that she shared concern about the potential impact of industrial action by SQA staff on appeals and she hoped unions would accept the revised pay offer put to them earlier in the week.

However, just a few hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, the Unite union rejected the revised pay offer and said strike action would get underway the following day, as planned. At the time of writing SQA staff also plan to strike on 15, 16, 22, 23, 26, 29 and 30 September, and 3 October. Unite said the action would “severely disrupt” the appeals process, the results of which are due at the end of October.

4. The SQA will ‘soon’ publish an evaluation of the 2021 alternative certification model

The SQA has carried out an evaluation of the “alternative certification model” (ACM) that was in place in 2021 - when schools were responsible for assessing and grading students - and Ms Robertson said that the results would be “published soon”. She also said that the SQA planned to carry out an analysis of the 2022 approach to assessment.

Both of these pieces of work will feed into the independent review of assessment and qualifications by Professor Louise Hayward, she said.

5. It could be years before Scotland can compare like-for-like senior phase performance over time

The SQA has warned against making comparisons between the results achieved during the years national qualifications have been impacted by the pandemic and previous years. Ms Robertson said that also applied to 2022 and 2019, given that 2021-22 was still “not a normal year” and adjustments had been made to assessment to take Covid into account.

However, MSPs on the committee wanted to know when it would be possible “to reasonably compare a year with 2019” and “have some indication of progress or otherwise” - especially given the large sums of money being invested in the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

The committee couldn’t extract a clear answer from Ms Robertson but Robert Quinn, the SQA’s head of English, languages and business, stepped in, saying: “My sense is it will probably take us a couple of years.”

So if there is no return to normal assessment arrangements in 2023-24, and then the approach to assessment changes with the scrapping of the SQA, Scotland could lack like-for-like data on the attainment gap in the senior phase for a number of years to come.

6. Concern over SQA reform being a ‘rebrand’ and not ‘substantive’

Labour education spokesperson Michael Marra questioned how genuine the reform of the SQA could be, given that the delivery board for the new qualifications body - which had its first meeting last month - was dominated by SQA managers.

He said this would fuel concerns that “what we are looking at is a rebrand here rather than actually a replacement or a substantive reform”.

The SQA’s Michael Baxter, who was also giving evidence to the committee and who chairs the board, said there were “a number of non-SQA members” and that it was not “about SQA marking its own homework” or “about the status quo”.

Following the education committee meeting, education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville told Tes Scotland that Mr Marra was “incorrect” and “only seven out of 15 members of the delivery board for the new qualifications body are SQA managers”. She added that the board also included “external voices to ensure critical challenge at all times” and that “final decisions on structure, culture and design of the new body” would be made by her.

7. Chief examiner’s response to committee grilling

As chief examiner, part of Ms Robertson’s job is to justify the decisions her organisation takes. At Wednesday’s committee meeting, however, Lib Dem education spokesperson Willie Rennie sarcastically congratulated her for “a great non-answer” at one point.

And the response was far from a robust defence when the SQA was accused of “failing” Scottish students by Conservative MSP Oliver Mundell over the widening of the attainment gap in 2022, after the gap had narrowed in 2020 and 2021 when schools and teachers were responsible for grading students.

Scotland’s chief examiner should be an assessment expert able to justify the SQA’s approach, especially at a time of qualifications reform. However, Ms Robertson often fell back on stock phrases such as it being her duty to deliver “fair and credible assessments”, without addressing head-on the serious accusations levelled at her organisation.

Emma Seith is a senior reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith