Fundamental exam reform in Scotland is the aim of a new project that launched last night, in the wake of the huge controversy surrounding this year’s Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) results.
In an opening blog post for exam.scot, organiser James McEnaney - an FE lecturer and writer, and a former secondary teacher - said: “If ever there was an opportunity to have a serious conversation about examination and certification in Scotland, it is surely now.
“The debacle around the 2020 results has pulled back the curtain on many of the fundamental issues with our national approach in this area, and even the two most powerful people in the country - Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney - have accepted that there could be a case for a new approach.
“Unfortunately, there seems little prospect of the necessary, national debate being facilitated by a technocratic OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) review, as the government wishes. Nor is there much faith in the ability of the SQA to manage such a process.”
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Mr McEnaney said that exam.scot is a call for “a serious discussion about where we go from here, with all options on the table”, including whether “we wish to retain the annual examination cycle we currently depend upon, with students facing final assessments in S4, S5 and S6”.
Scotland could, he said, look at alternative assessment systems in countries such as Ireland, Finland and New Zealand, and there may be “wide-reaching implications for the education system more broadly”.
Mr McEnaney added: “At present, the vast majority of subjects assess in the same fundamental way: a one-off, high-risk, traditional-style examination in May. Many courses also include an element of coursework or performance which combines with the exam to deliver the final grade. Is this system, broadly unchanged in decades, best suited to our needs, ideals and ambitions?”
The project hopes to include “people from a range of backgrounds” and ”start a process, not demand a particular solution”.
The starting point for the project was a discussion between Mr McEnaney (@MrMcEnaney on Twitter) and other educators including Isabelle Boyd (@isaboyd), George Gilchrist (@GilchristGeorge), Neil McLennan (@neiledinburgh) and Harold Raitt (@mr_raitt).
