The Scottish government today announced that it believes “the time is right” to reform qualifications and assessment - but said that “externally assessed examination will remain part of the new system”.

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon, education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville also said that the controversial Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) - designed to support teachers’ assessments of pupil performance in literacy and numeracy in P1, P4, P7 and S3 - will “continue to have an important role to play”.

This system for monitoring pupil performance was criticised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its review of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) published in June - it recommended that Scotland “redevelop a sample-based evaluation system to collect robust and reliable data necessary to support curriculum reviews and decision making”.

Ms Somerville said the government was set to explore the possibility of setting up “a sample-based survey looking across the capacities of Curriculum for Excellence” - but stressed that this did not mean that the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy, which was scrapped to make way for the SNSAs, was being resurrected.

Background: OECD review paves the way for qualifications overhaul

Related: Could Stobart report spell the end for S4 exams?

Opinion: Why our memory-based exams system is redundant in 2021

Yesterday: New SQA guidance on producing teacher estimates

In a statement on the next steps following the OECD review in June, Ms Somerville said “the time is right to signal that the Scottish government supports reform of the national qualifications and assessment”.

Qualifications reform: Exams ‘will remain’

She said the Scottish government would consult “on the purpose and principles which should underpin any reform of national qualifications and assessment” and that the University of Glasgow assessment expert Professor Louise Hayward would lead a group advising the government on “how agreed principles may be translated into a design for delivering assessment and qualifications”. Professor Hayward will start her work in the new year.

However, Ms Somerville ruled out an end to exams, saying that “externally assessed examination will remain part of the new system”.

The education secretary said: “The issue of assessment and qualifications generates strong and sometimes conflicting opinions. However, I am convinced that, given the experience and views expressed over the last two years, the time is right to signal that the Scottish government supports reform of the national qualifications and assessment.

“Just as with the work responding to the OECD’s recommendations, it will be vital when considering reform that we work with all stakeholders to - as far as possible - build a consensus.

“To this end, I can announce that the Scottish government will consult on the purpose and principles which should underpin any reform of national qualifications and assessment. This will be the first step in a process which must be done with careful thought and consideration, recognising the importance of national qualifications to learners.”

Here is the newly published Scottish Govt implementation framework following on from the OECD review.https://t.co/7KKKkVgv4f

First impressions - a minimalist approach with the potential to be a missed opportunity to reform some of the less helpful structural features of CfE

- Mark Priestley ?? (@MarkRPriestley) October 27, 2021

The SNSAs were criticised by the OECD in its report on Curriculum for Excellence published in June. The OECD said “a simple sample-based assessment” would be “richer”.

On the SNSAs, Ms Somerville said: “We remain committed to teacher professional judgement as the primary means of assessing progress in the BGE [broad general education], and will consider how we can better support that and the Achievement of CfE Levels data in future. National standardised assessments will continue to have an important role to play in this.”

However, Ms Somerville also revealed the government was considering introducing a sample survey “looking across the capacities of Curriculum for Excellence”.

Last month auditor general Stephen Boyle said it was accepted that schools were about more than exam results, but when it came to the data the focus remained on attainment when a “broader suite of indicators” such as health, wellbeing and confidence was needed.

Ms Somerville said: “I will be asking the Curriculum and Assessment Board to set up a short-life sub-group to explore options for a sample-based survey looking across the capacities of Curriculum for Excellence. The sub-group will specifically consider the workload implications for staff of a survey - this will be the first time that we have information that looks across the four capacities, but that has to be done in a proportionate and manageable way.”

Professor Hayward said: “In the senior phase, assessment and qualifications matter for all young people, their parents/carers, their teachers, to local authorities and regional improvement collaboratives, to colleges, universities and employers. 

“Any change needs to be based on insights from each of those communities and grounded in evidence from research. Crucially, the voices of young people, so often peripheral to debates in the past, must be listened to and heard.”

Conservative shadow education secretary Oliver Mundell said the SNP’s “radical and ill-thought-out reform to exams” would “end exams as we know them”.

He added that the government was “glossing over” the weaknesses identified in CfE, including “in relation to knowledge”.

Labour education spokesperson Michael Marra asked “how many more months the minister planned to talk about reform instead of implementing it”. He wanted to know when Ms Somerville planned to have a new inspection and curriculum agency in place; when reformed qualifications would be in place; and when teachers would receive the promised increase in their non-contact time.

Ms Somerville said she understood demands to move faster, but she wanted to work collaboratively. She said that in January Professor Ken Muir - who has been given the task of shaping reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Education Scotland - would come back with “very considered recommendations”.

EIS teaching union general secretary Larry Flanagan said: “The EIS welcomes the commitment to the further empowerment of schools and teachers outlined in the framework but would also emphasise that, in order for rhetoric to become reality, those with power must be willing to surrender some of their control.

“Specifically, this means the Scottish government and its learning directorate need to step back and allow practitioners and educationalists to have enhanced voice and agency in the implementation process. There is a danger that the multitude of fora being created will simply provide a smokescreen for an even more centralised approach to education governance.”