The decision to increase spending on Scotland’s national system of standardised assessments is “incomprehensible”, the country’s biggest teaching union has said.
Tes Scotland exclusively reported yesterday that a new contractor has been brought on board to deliver the Scottish Standardised National Assessments (SNSAs), at a predicted cost of £17 million over five years.
Now, the EIS teaching union has strongly criticised the Scottish government’s move to “significantly scale up its spending” on SNSAs, despite “very clear advice” from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that “the assessments are of limited value”.
The EIS teaching union has questioned “the judgement of the Scottish government in awarding the contract for the next phase of the SNSAs to the company that was the architect of the SQA’s [Scottish Qualifications Authority] heavily discredited algorithm which was at the centre of the 2020 results debacle”.
This will be among the issues discussed at the meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee tomorrow.
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said: “This decision by the Scottish government to almost double spending on SNSAs from £10 million to £17 million over five years, at a time when it is claimed that budgets are otherwise strapped, and in light of the OECD’s expressed doubt about the utility of SNSAs and unequivocal advice that the Scottish government should change its approach, is quite incomprehensible.”
He added: “The decision is even more questionable given the very limited value of the SNSAs to teachers in assessing young people’s progress. In spite of the onerous nature of the SNSAs and their very limited educational worth, the expectation remains that teachers carry out the assessments when they have many other pressing priorities to manage, not least as a result of the pressures of safely delivering quality education in the context of the pandemic.”
Mr Flanagan also said that the awarding of the new SNSA contract “to the Manchester-based company that worked alongside the SQA to create the disastrous algorithm which downgraded the results of thousands of students from working-class backgrounds in 2020, is also a matter of deep concern”.
A Scottish government spokesperson, responding to the EIS teaching union comments, said: “It is wholly untrue to suggest that moving to the next phase of delivering SNSAs will see a considerable increase in spending.
“The delivery of national standardised assessments has cost in the region of £17 million since work began on them in late 2016 - similar to the expected cost of phase 2.
“In providing nationally consistent, objective and comparable information, SNSAs are a helpful additional source of information for teachers when considering children’s progress in literacy and numeracy. Data shows that teachers are increasingly finding SNSAs helpful.”
The spokesperson added: “Public procurement legislation requires that we return to the market periodically to maximise value for money and that we treat all potential suppliers equally and without discrimination. Tenders are evaluated on the basis of the information contained therein, and no other factors - AlphaPlus Ltd were awarded the phase 2 contract on that basis.
“AlphaPlus are recognised specialists in educational assessment.”
