Have you ever wondered why the Scottish Qualifications Authority, alone among the school examination bodies of the UK, does not provide a service to return exam scripts after they have been marked?

These days, the transparency provided by freedom of information and data protection laws is taken for granted in most public services, so it seems anomalous that Scottish pupils (and their teachers and parents) are not allowed to see how their marks are awarded or their grades calculated.

The anomaly is even greater when you consider that, unlike other UK exam boards, the SQA is a monopoly provider of its qualifications.

Monopolies have a particular responsibility to demonstrate the quality of what they do and open themselves to the greatest possible scrutiny.

According to the SQA, there is no legal requirement on them to provide transparency by releasing scripts, as the Freedom of Information Act does not apply and the Data Protection Act unhelpfully includes an explicit exemption for exam materials. But they could release scripts if they wanted to.

Confidence in results is vital

The quality of exams and confidence in results is of no less importance to young people in Scotland than to their peers in the rest of the UK.

When so much depends on the outcome of exams, it seems unreasonable to expect candidates simply to take on trust that assessment has been properly undertaken. It is in everyone’s interest that any lingering doubt be removed and that candidates and their teachers are enabled to identify why a particular mark and grade have been awarded. Seeing the paper that was actually written and comparing it with the published mark scheme is the ultimate form of quality assurance.

But the benefit goes much further than that. The return of scripts would provide a valuable teaching and staff training resource for schools. No amount of exemplar material produced by examiners can compare with seeing what your own pupils actually achieved when faced with the questions set in an actual exam. Granted, there is a risk of increasing a tendency to teach to the test. On the other hand, understanding how a theoretical mark scheme is translated by the exam and marking process into bands and grades is fundamental to ensuring that each pupil has the greatest chance of achieving their best-possible performance. At present, only teachers who are involved in the process one way or another are privy to this intelligence.

No doubt the SQA would say that the cost of returning scripts is prohibitive - but it shouldn’t be any greater for them than for other exam bodies. And anyway, if transparency works for medical records and just about everything else that affects our lives and those of our children, why shouldn’t it work for exam scripts, too?

Melvyn Roffe is principal of George Watson’s College in Edinburgh