Late last Friday afternoon, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) quietly published two consultation documents on the 2021 exams. By this stage, the storm over students’ results had - since education secretary John Swinney announced that teachers’ grades would be accepted after all - largely left Scotland, to rage across other parts of the UK instead.

Already, however, ominous clouds are looming again: schools and colleges are bracing themselves for what could easily be a similarly traumatic experience for the students of 2020-21.

The consultation is on proposed changes to National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses, to compensate for the upheaval of Covid-19. We were alerted to it by the SQA at 3.30pm on Friday. Judging by the reaction, it was also news to many schools and teachers. They now had 10 days to get their views in about the changes: the deadline is 24 August, and changes will be confirmed in the week beginning 31 August.

Initial reaction was that some subjects had barely changed, if at all; only an hour of learning had been shaved off, said some teachers. And this, of course, in a year when students weren’t able to start courses at school before the summer, and when a spike in Covid cases could at any point lead to local disruption or even national cancellation of exams once again.

Let’s not forget, too, the toll on students’ and teachers’ mental health taken by the constant spectre of coronavirus, and that this year’s Higher students are being told to plough ahead with exams despite being the first Higher cohort in history not to have the experience of sitting exams at a lower level.

Meanwhile, many subject teachers still feel that Education Scotland and the Scottish government are leaving them to operate in the dark, given the vagueness of advice on how things will operate this year.

There has been plenty of confusion over practical and creative subjects. In a document published on 30 July, home economics teachers were told that guidance on “safe practice” in their subject “will be available in the autumn”. (The Met Office, for context, advises that autumn runs from 22 September to 21 December.) When we checked again with the government and Education Scotland this week, HE guidance remained just as vague.

Within such vacuums, schools and teachers are forced to interpret situations in their own way. Some schools have decided that the safest approach with home economics is to teach only theory in the meantime; others are pressing ahead with practical cooking classes.

Teachers have been warning almost since lockdown started in March of the potential injustices to be wrought upon pupils in 2020-21. In April, the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) was calling for the 2021 exams to be cancelled and teachers’ judgement to be used instead - otherwise schools would, in a shortened year, be left with a “monster we can’t deliver”. Yet, the government response until the new consultation - the breakneck speed of which is making cynics think proposed changes are a fait accompli - was merely to say the exams might start a few weeks later than usual.

Students and teachers all went back to school this week, with the stresses over doing so in a global pandemic and on the back of the SQA results fiasco.

Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney clawed back some goodwill by showing humility over results, but if they are not careful that will all be tossed away again: the electorate is now attuned to unfairness in SQA qualifications, which existed even before Covid-19.

Scottish parliamentary elections are due to take place during exams season next year. If the perception of an unjust qualifications system continues - or is exacerbated - in this most exceptional of years, it could become a defining issue on the campaign trail.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 21 August 2020 issue under the headline “Taming the 2021 exams ‘monster’ will take more than a quick fix”