Scotland’s exam body told education secretary John Swinney that the country’s most disadvantaged pupils had not been “adversely affected” by the process it had put in place for awarding grades, just five days before the results were released amid huge controversy.
Figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s equality impact assessment triggered the backlash against the 2020 results, which eventually led to the government throwing out the SQA’s moderation process and reverting to teacher estimates.
However, new documents have been released under freedom of information legislation and, in an SQA presentation to the education secretary on 30 July - five days before results day on 4 August - only one slide refers to the equality impact assessment.
Background: Poorest far more likely to have Higher pass downgraded
News: Fears raised over legality of SQA grades process
The U-turn: All downgraded results to be withdrawn
2019 appeals: Fewer students are requesting checks of exam scores
Appeals disquiet: ‘Urgent need for student-centred appeals’
The slide contains no figures and one of the seven bullet points reads: “Statistical analysis on available data demonstrating that lowest SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) bandings not adversely affected in revision of estimates.”
During the presentation, Mr Swinney was also made aware that 124,565 teacher estimates had been downgraded, with 45,454 downgraded from a pass to a fail.
Today, The Times newspaper is reporting that an official asked on Mr Swinney’s behalf for more information on these larger downgrades and whether they were concentrated in a few schools.
According to the newspaper, he was told on 3 August by the SQA that 36,377 pupils had seen marks downgraded, with at least one candidate affected at 418 of Scotland’s 467 schools or colleges.
The documents - published following a freedom of information request - also show that the SQA was planning for a five-fold increase in appeals this year.
In a briefing for Mr Swinney, the SQA said 125,000 entries were eligible for appeal and it was working on a planning assumption that 50 per cent would go ahead. The SQA estimated that around 700 teachers - or “senior appointees” - would be needed to support the appeals process.
Last year 11,528 requests were received by the SQA’s “post-results service”.
Ultimately, appeals to an alternative emergency process put in place this year will have been greatly reduced by the decision to revert to teacher estimates - although there are fears the current system is not fit for purpose, especially as pupils have no right to make a direct appeal.
The equality impact assessment of the SQA’s process for awarding grades this year was published on results day after the body refused repeated requests - including from the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee - to make it available sooner.
The figures it contained showed moderation had led to the poorest students’ Higher pass rate being reduced by 15.2 percentage points after moderation, while the most affluent pupils rate was reduced by 6.9 percentage points.
This led to those who had been raising concerns about the fairness of the system - which used a school’s historical attainment data to adjust results - to protest that the poorest young people were more than twice as likely to have their Higher downgraded from a pass to a fail than their most affluent peers.
