Scotland’s education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, often references the “plethora of different reports” on her desk.

In recent years Scotland has received advice from experts on how to improve the implementation of its curriculum; how to take forward reform of key education bodies; and how to reform assessment and qualifications in the “senior phase” of secondary school.

And now it has been revealed, through a freedom of information request, that the total bill for six of the recent reviews of Scottish education totals almost £1 million - from Professor Mark Priestley’s rapid review of the 2020 results debacle to Professor Louise Hayward’s review of assessment and qualifications, published in June.

Scottish education reviews: the cost

Here is the breakdown:

£30,781 - National Qualifications Experience 2020: rapid review, published in October 2020 and conducted by Professor Priestley.

In 2020, when Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams were cancelled for the first time because of the pandemic, teachers were responsible for grading their students, but the SQA then moderated these grades. Ultimately, 25 per cent of teacher judgements were changed and there was an outcry as students received lower grades than anticipated.

The government was then forced to revert to the teacher grades. Professor Priestley was brought in to review what went wrong. He concluded that the SQA and the Scottish government were faced with an “impossible situation”, but that the debacle could have been “partially avoided” if different decisions had been taken.

£370,356 - Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: into the future was published in June 2021 and Upper-secondary Education Student Assessment in Scotland: a comparative perspective was published in August 2021. Both reports were conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The OECD review of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) - commissioned after the Scottish government came under pressure over the narrowing of the curriculum in Scottish secondaries - set in motion some of the other reviews in this list. It found that CfE’s implementation had been “accomplished in primary and lower secondary” but that there was “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system” and this had become “a barrier to CfE’s implementation in secondary education”.

The review that followed of assessment in the secondary school senior phase was conducted by Professor Gordon Stobart, on behalf of the OECD. It recommended that exams should be scrapped in S4 and replaced with “a school graduation certificate” for those leaving school at 16. Professor Stobart described Scotland as being “historically steeped in examinations” and suggested that Scottish school students were the world’s “most over-examined”.

£121,378 - Putting Learners at the Centre: towards a future vision for Scottish education was published in March 2022 and conducted by Professor Ken Muir

In response to the OECD review of CfE, the Scottish government committed to replacing the SQA and “substantially” reforming Education Scotland; the purpose of Professor Muir’s report was to help it realise these goals.

Professor Muir recommended creating three new education bodies: a qualifications body, an independent inspectorate and a new education agency. It was originally envisaged that the new organisations would become operational in 2024; that has since been delayed until 2025.

£184,888 - All Learners in Scotland Matter: national discussion on education was published in May 2023 and conducted by Professor Carol Campbell and Professor Alma Harris.

After consulting 38,000 people, the national discussion final report was published. It found “optimism for the future of Scottish education” but also much that needed to be improved - from support for pupils with additional needs and safety in school, to an exam system many young people found “stressful and delimiting”.

£44,657 - Fit for the Future: developing a post-school learning system to fuel economic transformation was published in June 2023 and conducted by James Withers.

Substantial change is required to ensure that the system is fit for the future, concluded Withers. Among his recommendations was that “a common language” for school and post-school qualifications be developed using the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework, which maps qualifications against different learning levels. He commented on the “often bewildering set of different names for qualifications” in Scottish schools and in post-school education.

£207,678 - It’s Our Future: independent review of qualifications and assessment was published in June 2023 and conducted by Professor Louise Hayward.

This review recommended scrapping external exams for qualifications below Higher level and introducing a Scottish Diploma of Achievement to better recognise students’ wider achievements - not just their academic attainment.

While there is a range of views over how “radical” the impact of the Hayward report will prove to be, its importance to the future of Scottish education was underlined last June when Ms Gilruth decided to “pause” the reform process to allow more teachers to share their views.

The Scottish government has promised an update in March, but many influential figures in Scottish education have become impatient with the delay.