Qualifications were ‘fully aligned’ with CfE, says SQA

But this ‘strong alignment’ was ‘weakened’ when they began being implemented by schools, argues the Scottish Qualifications Authority

1st September 2021, 1:54pm

Emma Seith

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The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has defended the qualifications that were introduced to complement Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), saying they were “fully aligned” with its aspirations.

Scottish national qualifications have come under fire recently for failing to chime with the country’s “bold” and “aspirational” curriculum, given the reliance on traditional end-of-year exams, with students reporting that this leads to an emphasis on “rote learning and memorisation” in upper secondary.

The criticism - contained in the June review of CfE carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - led to the Scottish government saying it would replace the SQA.

However, the SQA says the suite of national courses, which began to be introduced in 2012, “were fully aligned with the aspirations of CfE” and “met the original purposes and aims of the curriculum”, but this was “somewhat weakened by subsequent issues and decisions”.

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The SQA has this week released its submission to another OECD report, which was published yesterday. In it, the SQA criticises the way the new qualifications were implemented by schools - saying many tried to stick to the presentation patterns of old, despite the “flexibility” afforded by the new courses. The SQA also highlights the problems caused by the internally assessed National 4 being widely seen early on as “representing a compensatory award for a failed National 5 attempt”.

The SQA submission says that the Scottish government’s decision to remove the unit assessments at National 5 to Advanced Higher, and “unravel a qualifications system so quickly”, had “far reaching consequences” - including that exams were introduced for practical courses.

It adds that the “unintended consequences” of the decision to scrap the unit assessments - which was taken in 2016 and followed complaints that the assessments had created unmanageable workload and a “testing treadmill” in schools - “are unlikely to be known for some time”.

The SQA states: “The design and development phases of the new National Courses aligned with the aspirations of Curriculum for Excellence. The governance structure played a key role in ensuring this.

“However, issues at implementation specifically linked to teachers’ and lecturers’ understanding of the relationship between National 4 and 5, and the national standard at these levels, directly contributed to over-assessment. Consequently, this may have resulted in assessment leading learning and teaching - an outcome that conflicted with the values, principles and purposes of the curriculum.”

On the decision to remove unit assessments, it says: “Although the revision of the National Courses is now complete, it is clear that there will be unintended consequences of the decision made to unravel a qualification system so quickly, the consequences of which are unlikely to be known for some time.

“However, what is clear is that the strong alignment of National Courses with Curriculum for Excellence has been somewhat weakened by subsequent issues and decisions.”

The new OECD report, published yesterday, looks in more detail specifically at the Scottish school qualifications.

One of its key recommendations is that Scotland should consider scrapping exams in S4 and replacing them with a “school graduation certificate or diploma” for leavers.

However, the OECD review adds: “These options are not new, they were discussed both in the design of CfE for secondary schools and at the formulation of the new National Qualifications. It appears that each time the embedded examination tradition has prevailed.”

It also says that the removal of the unit assessments led to “a retrenchment towards a more traditional examination system, with teacher assessment of individual units abandoned” and the role of final exams “expanded”.