Debate on the recommendations of the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment - Cabinet Secretary Speech - 28 February 2024

Presiding Officer,

I am pleased to open this afternoon’s important debate on the recommendations of the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment.

On Monday I met with the teaching professional associations to discuss qualifications reform. And I am grateful for their input thus far. I look forward to continuing to learn from their members’ expertise, in that respect.

Last week I met with opposition spokespeople; and I very much hope that today we will be able to identify some areas of consensus on school reform. The Government will submit a formal response to the Independent Review in the coming weeks and it is important that today’s debate informs that process. 

There are areas of the Independent Review’s report that are moving at pace.

But we need to be mindful of the current context faced by our teachers and young people, as Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment today makes clear. She also rightly points out the importance of engaging with parents and young people and to that end I was grateful for the opportunity to engage on this matter with the Children’s Commissioner yesterday.

That context has changed since the pandemic started. Fully engaging the teaching profession in what comes next will be a guiding principle for me as Cabinet Secretary.

That is why, Presiding Officer, I took the decision last year to pause legislative changes to the SQA and Education Scotland.

And I did so because of my direct engagement with the profession – particularly, reflecting on what I heard from Scotland’s Secondary teachers.

 

I commissioned further survey evidence to strengthen teacher voice in the reform process and I would like to thank the thousands of teachers that contributed, the results of which were published yesterday.

The online survey response represents the views of over 9,000 educational professionals, the majority of whom were teachers.

 

Overall, the survey demonstrates that there is no clear and settled view amongst Scotland’s teachers.

Now while almost all respondents wish to see some change to qualifications and assessment, with some very supportive of the proposals, others favour a more incremental approach.

And My view is that the survey succinctly captures that changing context in our classrooms post-covid.

Indeed, a number of factors, be those Additional Support Needs, Attendance, Behaviour and relationships, or teacher workload – as highlighted in the Labour amendment - are compounding the challenge in our classrooms every day.

 

So as Cabinet Secretary I need to put in place a realistic programme of reform that takes into account the capacity of the system as well as the budget within which we must operate.

I thank the member for her intervention, I think actually the context in which these address is important. However I think she recognise I built in this additional year and I think that has been important in the past year to capture teach voice better in the reform process.

I think that the system at the current time is dealing with a number of different pressures and yes reform offers us opportunities but we need to be mindful about how that plays out in terms of the practicalities and I want to come on to talk about some of that particularly in relation to continuous assessment.  

So how that reform to curriculum, qualifications and assessment is advanced in that context Presiding Officer really requires to be understood; though I think there is a consensus in this Parliament that change must come.

Crucially, reform must be interwoven with driving educational improvements.

 

Now in their most recent report, the International Council of Education Advisers reminded us of this, stating:

 

“Clear beneficial impact on the learning and experience of the young people and their teachers should be the acid test of any proposals."

 

And I firmly agree with that.

I would to thank Professor Louise Hayward and her Review Group for the substantial report and recommendations on senior phase qualifications.

I know that some – though not all - are asking for significant change.

The Independent Review makes twenty-six wide-ranging recommendations and challenges us to look at our senior phase qualifications offering differently.

Now central to the proposed new approach could be the creation of a Scottish Diploma of Achievement, comprising of three different elements –

• The first is Programmes of Learning or subjects as they might be known in today’s parlance. The review recommends that we change the balance of assessment away from that over-reliance on high stakes exams, increasing the use of digital assessment and removing exams completely at national five, usually taken in S4.

• The second is Project based learning – a formal opportunity to build skills and put knowledge through a project based on inter-disciplinary learning.

 

• And the third is a Personal Pathway – an opportunity for young people to personalise their Diploma by including a range of achievements that reflect their interests.

Now taken in their totality, the move to a Scottish Diploma would represent a radical departure of our current qualifications offering.

So any change to our qualifications system requires to be managed carefully. And indeed, having been a teacher when Curriculum for Excellence was introduced, I know there are lessons for the Government to learn in that respect on how we can work better to support the profession on qualifications reform.

As I announced to Parliament in December Presiding Officer, a Curriculum Improvement cycle has already begun, with Maths being the first area to be updated.

Curriculum Improvement in Maths will look to work with the profession to better align the broad general education and the senior phase, ensuring smoother progression. And I am pleased that we will shortly be able appoint a Maths specialist to lead on this work nationally.

 

Indeed, progression between the broad general education phase and the start of senior phase qualifications should be seamless, but we know this is not always the case.  

 

Additionally, while the new qualifications body will consider the content of qualifications to ensure progression, as part of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle, the other change needed relates to rebalancing the assessment methods as recommended by Professor Hayward. 

 

And indeed you would ideally you would like to do both at the same time, but clearly that is not always going to be possible if we are going to make progress at pace.  

 

Presiding Officer, not every qualification has to look the same in the future. Course work requirements were reintroduced this academic year following the removal of modifications put in place during the pandemic.  And whilst this was welcomed by some young people and teachers for some subjects, it has not been welcomed by all. 

I have therefore asked the SQA to work with the teaching profession as part of their evaluation of 2024 to consider the experience of a return to full course assessment.  This might in the future inform future potential changes, which don’t have to wait for substantive qualifications reform.

I have also had assurances from the Chief Examiner that the SQA will consider the impact of reintroduction of coursework in their approach to grading this year, which is right and proper.

And that nuance is required in terms of external assessment weighting. I am firmly of the view that some subject areas would be better served by practical assessment. Now how that might be administered in every subject area will involve engagement with subject specialists in our schools – but there should be not be necessarily a requirement in the future that every single course needs a final ‘exam’ per se.  There are potential quick wins here, which I am keen to see the new qualifications agency moving at pace on working with the teaching profession.

 

That partnership between our national bodies, local government, teachers and professional associations will be really critical to implementing reform, as Mr Kerr’s amendment notes. This can’t just be about our schools.

 

There are two elements of that, the first is curriculum improvement. The curriculum improvement that I announced in December is going to have a maths specialist lead on it and that report will work with the teaching profession and report later this year. So we will update the curriculum this year in maths followed by the English curriculum.

 

We also need to of course engage with the new qualifications agency which I will legislate for in the coming months hopefully. And finally of course the government will submit it’s formal response in relation to Professor Haywards recommendations setting out the timelines that the member speaks to, I think that is hugely important. But the point that I was making presiding officer is that there are a number of actions that we can take in the here and now to update the content of our courses and I think it’s important that teachers and our young people see progress to that end.

Presiding Officer, we like tests in Scotland.

As Professor Gordon Stobbart has observed:

“In comparative terms, Scottish upper-secondary school students are more frequently examined than those in other jurisdictions”.

And we should contrast the school exams approach with that adopted by our Universities, for example, many of whom have moved to a much more flexible approaches to continuous assessment post-pandemic. So why not our schools?

Now our teachers would say – and rightly so – that’s because of the requirements stipulated by the SQA at the current time.

But the role of our new qualifications body has to be central to a move away from that examinations heavy qualifications focus, towards more continuous assessment.  And how that requirement is implemented needs Government to learn lessons from the introduction of the National Qualifications.

I think I gave some of that response to the members colleague in the previous intervention and of course I will legislate for the creation of the new qualifications body in the coming weeks and we expect that to be operational from 2025.

These were the requirements Presiding Officer previously associated with the original approach to Unit Assessment which accompanied the introduction of the current National Qualifications and this I think is really important, it’s the bread and butter of what teachers do every day. But these standards were in my opinion accompanied by overly bureaucratic standards which required to be ‘overcome’ by every pupil, for every Unit, for each teacher to input to the SQA.

So, how you administer continuous assessment really matters. We do not want a re-run of that box ticking or overly administrative approaches which add to teacher workload and do nothing to improve outcomes for our children and young people.

Continuous assessment can support really good progression – and we know there are challenges right now between Nat 4 and Nat 5 and particularly that jump on to Higher in certain subjects.

So getting this right, through Curriculum Improvement, will support Scotland’s teachers and also improve outcomes for Scotland’s young people.

Presiding Officer, the best part of being the Education Secretary is undoubtedly having the opportunity to visit Scotland’s schools. And I am always struck, on my engagement in our secondaries, by the extensive range of qualifications now on offer.

For many, that move has been a really welcome one – opening up non-traditional pathways.

But Professor Hayward’s second substantive recommendation in relation to the number of qualifications we have in our schools is in relation to a rationalisation of that offer. And my view is that a degree of rationalisation is needed to support clearer pathways for our young people and for the teachers working hard to support them.

In that respect I am supportive of the review’s proposal to rationalise the existing range of courses.

Presiding Officer I’m conscious of time, I’ve not yet had an opportunity to talk to the opportunities presented by project based learning or in relation to more broadly how we can accredit the personal pathway element although I look forward to hearing views of members on those other two elements that would accompany any move to a Scottish diploma.

Undoubtedly change must be carefully planned.

And of course many teachers are now asking questions the practicalities of how that might work in our classrooms. I think it was right and proper that we pause legislative reform last year to build in that opportunity for our teachers to fully engage with the reports proposals because without them reform cannot work.

And I agree with Liam Kerr who said earlier this month that it’s the “responsibility of Parliament to address the current challenges in the Scottish education system, by setting them out clearly and trying to work in a cross-party way to find solutions.” 

That is what I am aiming to do in respect of the recommendations of the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment.

And I look forward to hearing the views of colleagues across the chamber this afternoon, in advance of the formal Scottish Government response.

Presiding Officer, I move the motion in my name.