Reform stemming from the Hayward review of assessment and qualifications will start by the end of 2024, education secretary Jenny Gilruth has said.
She also insisted this afternoon that “significant progress” must be made by the end of this parliamentary term, which leaves just over two years.
While the Scottish government has still to issue its formal response to the recommendations in Professor Louise Hayward’s report, published in June 2023, today’s statement from the education secretary was an attempt to quell concerns that progress on education reform had stalled.
In a motion to the Scottish Parliament this afternoon, Ms Gilruth underlined “the need to make significant progress in the reform of the qualifications and assessment landscape in this parliamentary session [the next elections are due in May 2026], with initial changes starting in 2024”.
She also acknowledged that “trusted professionals working in Scotland’s schools must be provided with the necessary support to enable the adoption of any proposed new approaches to assessment”.
Speaking to the motion, Ms Gilruth said that while the government’s official response to the Hayward report - officially titled It’s Our Future: Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment - had still to come, there were “potential quick wins” and “a number of actions that we can take in the here and now”.
Response to Hayward review ‘in coming weeks’
She also said that the government’s formal response would be published “in the coming weeks” and that she would legislate for a new qualifications agency to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) “in the coming months”.
Moves to update course content and “rationalise” the wide array of courses available in Scotland were needed and should begin soon, indicated Ms Gilruth. She also suggested exploring which courses might not require an exam, and reiterated her support for a general move “away from exams”.
However, detailed analysis of consultation responses from teachers to the Hayward review, published yesterday, suggest that opinion is split on whether reducing the number of exams in the senior phase is desirable.
The analysis also shows that adequate funding is seen as the biggest short-term priority for successful education reform, closely followed by greater clarity on what reform will look like in practice and “parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications”.
Scottish Conservative education spokesperson Liam Kerr said that unless action was taken soon to help the education system make sense of a recent “barrage” of reports, reform deemed essential in a 2021 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) would be increasingly at risk of “stalling”.
EIS teaching union general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “It was clear from all in the chamber that the time for action is now.
“Our members have campaigned ceaselessly for reform of senior-phase qualifications and assessment to reduce the burden of over-assessment currently placed on young people, as well as the workload pressures on teachers trying to teach the curriculum in S4 and S5, in what has been described as the ‘two-term dash’.”
She added: “The Scottish Diploma of Achievement (SDA) has the potential to deliver this and make a bold statement that in Scotland we value much more in education than attainment measured by exam passes.
“Scotland’s teachers will rightly ask how they can be expected to deliver such bold, generational reforms in the face of crushing workload and an unprecedented crisis of under-resourcing.
“The EIS is clear that to support implementation, the Scottish Government must commit proper funding - for additional staff, reduced class sizes, reduced class-contact time and ring-fenced resourcing to meet the rising level and complexity of additional support needs, if all young people are to be supported to achieve an SDA that reflects their individual achievements.’’
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