Greens have challenged government over exams support, insists co-leader

Fury from teachers and students about the Scottish Qualifications Agency (SQA) exam support published this week has been raised in government as a “constructive challenge” by the Scottish Greens, co-leader Patrick Harvie has said.

The qualification authority was accused of another “unacceptable shambles” over the guidance for pupils sitting exams, with it being branded “patronising and useless” by teachers.

Mr Harvie accepted there was a “very clear and palpable sense of anger across the profession” and said his party has conveyed that message to their coalition partners.

But the Scottish Green co-leader said it was not the government’s job to “wade in and start rewriting” the advice, which included suggestions such as telling pupils to spell words correctly.

Speaking to the PA news agency ahead of the Scottish Greens’ party conference, Mr Havie said: “The influence that we have obviously is on the government’s response to independent reports, you don’t wade in and start rewriting reports that are coming into government in the first place.

“I think there is a very clear and palpable sense of anger across the profession about the way they’ve been treated for many years, and that’s been made worse by some of the experiences through the pandemic.

He added: “Ross Greer has already been raising, in our spirit of constructive challenge, a lot of the problems that have been expressed with the current guidance notes that have come out.

“We’ll continue to take every opportunity to bring pressure to bear to make sure that the future is brighter for young people in schools and for the teaching profession.

“But there is a huge amount to do, not just to address those immediate challenges but to catch up on the impact that Covid has had and to take forward some of the longer term reform work that’s long overdue.”

The SQA and Education Scotland will be replaced with new organisations as part of an overhaul of the education system.

It follows a report by education expert Professor Ken Muir, who recommended that the SQA’s replacement be called Qualifications Scotland though the government has not decided on a name yet.

His recommendation, which was accepted by the government, was that the new exams organisation should have a different governance structure with more input from learners and teachers.

Referencing the change, Mr Harvie said: “We’re strongly committed to ensuring that we follow through on the promises that we made and the commitments that were made, for example to replace the SQA.

“That has to be done in a responsible way, respecting the position of the workforce there, but the opportunity to transform education still has to be one that we take very, very seriously.

When asked about the guidance, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “We will continue to seek assurances from the SQA that the right support is in place for pupils and for teachers.

“The support that is being talked about is not all of the support that is in place, there has been other support made available in terms of preparation for the exams.

“So we will continue to engage with the SQA to make sure that pupils who have suffered such disruption to the education because of Covid are getting the right preparatory support for the exams that they will sit.”

She added: “These discussions are ongoing but the point I’m making here is that it is always easy to take a particular piece of support out of context and say that’s not good enough but it’s not the whole picture.

“There is support being provided in many different ways and it’s important that that continues.”