Just two-thirds of students passed Higher history this year - with the A-C pass rate for the qualification dropping over 10 percentage points between 2023 and 2024, according to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
Data published by the SQA shows that just 65.7 per cent of students sitting Higher history this year attained an A-C grade, a drop of 13.1 percentage points on 2023.
Last year the A-C pass rate for Higher history was 78.7 per cent; in 2019, the last year students sat exams before the pandemic, it was 72.8 per cent.
One parent who contacted Tes Scotland said that their daughter had never dropped below 70 per cent in any history essay or exam and had achieved A grades in her other four other Higher subjects - but in history, she got a C.
The parent said: “This to me suggests there is a discrepancy in the marking process by SQA in this subject.”
An end to most Covid-driven changes
In 2023-24 the SQA ended the vast majority of modifications to assessment made in response to the pandemic, including reintroducing the coursework element of qualifications.
For Higher history, this meant the return of the assignment which contributes 27 per cent to the final mark.
However, the SQA said in a statement that history teachers and learners had ”welcomed its return” and “the assignment performed as expected” in 2023-24.
The spokesperson added: “There was no change to the approach or standard of the Higher history question papers. There was, however, a drop in learners’ performance in the question papers.”
The proportion of Higher history students who achieved A grades also dropped sharply in 2024.
This year, 23.6 per cent of students sitting the qualification achieved an A grade - a drop of over 12 percentage points on 2023, when 36.3 per cent achieved As. In 2019, 28.4 per cent of Higher history entries achieved A grades.
In its attainment summary the SQA says of the five highest uptake subjects - which also include English, maths, PE and chemistry - that history saw the biggest A-C attainment decrease, from 78.7 per cent in 2023 to 65.7 per cent in 2024 (13.1 percentage points down).
Overall Higher pass rates fall
Overall, the Higher A-C pass rate across all subjects dropped this year - but only by 2.2 percentage points: 74.9 per cent of Higher entries achieved an A-C grade, compared to 77.1 per cent in 2023.
The A-C pass rate this year also dropped for the other four highest-uptake subjects at Higher - but after history, the most significant drop was 3.5 percentage points for Higher chemistry, down from 77.8 per cent in 2023 to 74.3 per cent in 2024.
Across all Higher subjects, just two saw a bigger drop in the pass rate than Higher history between 2024 and 2023: applications of mathematics (down 13.3 percentage points) and care (down 22.5 percentage points).
When the SQA announced the reinstatement of coursework for the 2023-24 school year, the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association described the decision as “foolhardy” and called on the SQA to reconsider.
The SSTA argued that younger students had suffered greater learning loss because senior students were prioritised during the pandemic.
However, the SQA said that coursework provided learners with “a more balanced approach to assessment” - and it said it would “consider any impact on learners completing coursework for the first time” when determining final grades.
Return to pre-Covid approaches ‘the right step’
In her chief examiner’s report, published last week on results day, SQA chief executive Fiona Robertson maintained “the return to full-course assessment was the right step”.
In 2024, the grade boundary for attaining a C grade for Higher history was 48.2 per cent.
The Higher history assessment is composed of three elements: two exam papers and an assignment.
This year the mean score for paper one (British, European and world history) was 22.7 out of 44, compared to 24 out of 44 in 2019.
The mean score for paper two (Scottish history) was 15.2 out of 36, compared to 18.8 out of 36 in 2019, while for the assignment it was 21.3 out of 30 (22.2 out of 30 in 2019).
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