Consensus in education can be hard to achieve, but the idea that exams should stay - albeit not in their current form - appears to be something that those who work in Scottish education largely agree on.
Yesterday, Ken Muir’s report into how key education bodies including Scotland’s exam agency, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), and its inspection and curriculum organisation, Education Scotland, should be reformed was published.
It recommends that three new agencies should be formed.
As part of the report, a consultation was carried out that received just over 850 responses to a wide range of questions about how Scottish education should be run in the future.
Just as the questions were wide-ranging, so were the views of the respondents. But when it came to exams, while there were still “mixed messages”, the consultation report found “generally there was agreement that exams were necessary and beneficial but should be ‘lighter touch’ and more equitable, so as not to be seen as elitist”.
There was also consensus in terms of who should have ultimate responsibility for grading students, with “most respondents agreeing assessments should primarily be done externally, and that an assessment system based purely on teachers’ views would be ‘rife with inequity’”.
Following the disruption caused by Covid, the appetite for assessment reform has been growing.
Then, last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) review of Curriculum for Excellence was critical of the way senior-phase students in Scotland are assessed - saying there was “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system”. It suggested that Scotland explore other assessment approaches such as continuous teacher assessment, externally marked projects and extended essays, and oral and practical presentations.
The Scottish government has said it supports qualifications reform, but that externally assessed exams will remain.
In his report, Putting learners at the centre: towards a future vision for Scottish education, Professor Muir says there is an appetite among school students for a “major overhaul” of the examination system. But the wider range of respondents who took part in the consultation seem less radical in their thinking, with some even making the case for a return to the previous examination regime in Scotland, the Standard Grades.
The Standard Grades were replaced by the Nationals with the idea that they would better complement Curriculum for Excellence, but the consultation report says that “respondents commented on the benefits of the former Standard Grades and that they should perhaps be reinstated”.
However, similar views to those expressed in the OECD report can be found in the consultation.
It finds: “The general feeling was that so much focus was given to passing exams that attention on other aspects of personal development was lost.”
It also states that there was “broad consensus...that more qualifications in a broader range of subjects was welcomed”.
But only 39 per cent of the 640 respondents who answered agreed that the creation of a Curriculum and Assessment Agency “will help to address the misalignment of curriculum and assessment as outlined in the OECD report”.
A key concern was that the new agency would not change things and that it would simply be “a ‘rebranding’ of past agencies”.
The Muir report recommends that the SQA has its regulation and accreditation function removed and that a new agency, called Qualifications Scotland, is established, responsible for “the design and delivery of qualifications, the operation and certification of examinations and the awarding of certificates”.
The idea is that the SQA’s replacement will not “mark its own homework” anymore, and there will be an “external perspective on the effectiveness of the examination and qualifications system”.
It also sets out plans for a new education body responsible for supporting curriculum, assessment and learning and teaching.
Under the plans, the inspectorate will be an independent organisation.
On inspection, the consultation found that 61 per cent of respondents agreed that “independent inspection has an important role to play in scrutiny and evaluation, enhancing improvement and building capacity”.
It also found that many respondents to the Muir review “stressed the need for any future system to be more supportive of improvement and development and less negative/punitive in nature” and also that there was support for “unannounced visits...to ensure the inspection captures the reality of day-to-day business”.
