Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, today underlined her confidence in the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s response to the cancellation of exams last month.

Ms Sturgeon was asked at her daily coronavirus briefing this afternoon whether she had confidence in teachers’ judgement - and if they were the right people to decide whether students pass or fail this year - given recent controversy over the possibility of the SQA downgrading marks given by students’ schools and colleges.

She replied: “Yes, I have confidence in the judgement of teachers, but I think in any system you would expect a degree of moderation. That’s not about trying to substitute somebody else’s judgement for the judgement of teachers - it’s recognising that there is always human error, and there will always be a need to have a system that moderates any approach like this.”

She added that the SQA had “set out very clearly how that will work, and I’m sure we’ll continue to be very happy to try to address concerns”.

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Before their cancellation, this year’s SQA exams were due to have started on Monday.

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Ms Sturgeon added: “I suppose the other thing I would say, which is obvious, [is] it’s not an ideal position to be in. I wish young people across the country...were about to sit the exams.

“But that’s not possible this year, for the reasons that we know, so we have had to put in place another way of making sure that young people get the credit for all the work that they’ve done and are not disadvantaged, and SQA have done that.

“I have confidence in what they are doing, and will continue to try to address any reasonable concerns about it.”

The SQA will be questioned tomorrow morning by the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee.