Key staff for SQA replacement body to be announced ‘imminently’, Gilruth says

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth has said key appointments will be made to Scotland’s new exam body “imminently”.

Ms Gilruth said the establishment of Qualifications Scotland – which will replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) – will be a “catalyst” for change across the education system.

Her comments came as she was questioned by MSPs on Holyrood’s Education Committee about the Education Bill which will set up the body.

Ministers announced in 2021 that the SQA would be broken up after a row over exam grades during the pandemic and a critical OECD report.

Education Scotland will also be replaced and a new school inspections agency will be set up.

Conservative MSP Liam Kerr said there are concerns Qualifications Scotland will simply be a rebranded SQA.

He asked Ms Gilruth: “If this is the same organisation with a new name, with the same people, with the same specific functions, how can you as Cabinet Secretary be sure that the issues which arose will not happen again and that the trust that you demand is earned and maintained, and how will it be monitored?”

The Education Secretary said officials have assured her a range of new board appointments will be confirmed “imminently”, while the SQA chairwoman has already begun reforming the current agency.

But she said even with transformation, Scotland will still require an education body.

She told the committee: “The test here is how that qualifications body engages with parents, teachers, pupils, and how that will be different.

“Actually embedding learner voice within the governance structure, and teacher voice, is important.

“For too long, in my experience having worked in schools, it often felt the SQA was quite detached from the reality of what went on in our schools.”

Ms Gilruth pledged that the SQA and Qualifications Scotland will “not be the same organisations, because they have to change”.

She added: “That is the challenge with this Bill – it can’t be a replication of what came before.”

She told MSPs that legislative change is not enough and a change of culture is needed within the education system, which she added “wouldn’t happen overnight”.

She said structural reform within the SQA is “only part of the jigsaw”.

Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy told the Education Secretary that she is concerned the Education Bill will not resolve the issues within the SQA.

Ms Gilruth said the “status quo” is not acceptable and that she is willing to work with opposition MSPs to improve the Bill.

She added: “It’s pretty much accepted in Scotland’s secondary teacher community that where we got to in the pandemic with the SQA wasn’t acceptable.”

Exams were cancelled at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and teachers were instead asked to estimate pupils’ grades.

But moderation led to 125,000 young people having their results downgraded, with those from poorer backgrounds more likely to have their grades lowered.

Then first minister Nicola Sturgeon apologised, saying the Scottish Government “did not get it right”.

First Minister John Swinney – who was then the education secretary – survived an attempt by opposition parties to force him to resign at the time.