The final report of the independent review of qualifications and assessment commissioned by the Scottish government will now be submitted to the Scottish government at the end of May, as opposed to the end of March.
Writing to the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee to set out the new timeline, education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said last month that the interim report of the review - led by the University of Glasgow’s Professor Louise Hayward - would also be delayed.
The interim report was expected last month but instead is now scheduled to be published by the end of February.
Ms Somerville said that extra time had been granted to enable Professor Hayward “to fulfill her commitment to ensuring that there is meaningful engagement with a broad range of stakeholders during each of the three phases of the review”.
Last month Tes Scotland revealed that the closing date for the public consultation, which is being undertaken as part of the review, had been pushed forward by roughly a month, to Friday 13 January.
Qualifications and assessment reform in Scotland
Ms Somerville added: “This review is of utmost importance, not least to generations of our future learners, and a short extension to build in additional time for consultation is the pragmatic and correct course of action.
“The short extension to the timetable will also provide Professor Hayward and her independent review group with more time to consider the emerging findings of the national discussion on education.”
The national discussion on Scottish education took place between 21 September and 5 December, with 5,741 survey and email responses received.
The review of assessment and qualifications is expected to produce practical recommendations on qualifications reform in Scotland, as well as provide advice on implementation.
In its submission to the review, secondary headteachers’ organisation School Leaders Scotland said it was “fully supportive of a move away from senior-phase [S4-6] learning characterised by three successive years of end-of-term examinations”.
It favoured ways of assessing students’ learning that were “not driven by a high-stakes final examination system”.
The qualifications review in Scotland was sparked by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) review of Curriculum for Excellence, published in 2021. It found “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system” in the senior phase of secondary.
The cancellation of national exams in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the pandemic also renewed public debate over whether high-stakes, end-of-year exams are the best way of assessing what young people know and can do.
However, the government has already said that externally marked exams will remain part of any new system.
