It's Our Future - Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment: report

1. Introduction

Qualifications and assessment matter. They are important to learners as they provide evidence of their progress through education. They impact positively or negatively on confidence and self-esteem. They matter as learners move beyond compulsory education, when the qualifications they achieve, and the letters or numbers associated with them, determine opportunities, which doors to the next stage of their lives open or close. They matter to parents and carers. They matter to teachers, schools, lecturers and colleges who care deeply about the learners with whom they work. They matter to employers, universities, colleges and the voluntary sector who use qualifications to make decisions about which learners to appoint to which job or to select for which courses. Thus, qualifications and the way in which they are assessed, matter to individuals, communities and wider Scottish society.

The title of this report, It’s Our Future, has its genesis in a learner feeling frustrated that they had little say in decisions being taken about qualifications that impact them and affect their future and that of their friends. Making sure that all learners leave education with a clear idea of what they have achieved, linked to a positive future pathway, is our best hope of a future society that is stable, happy and prosperous. As a nation committed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC,-1989), that must be our goal.

In October 2021, the then, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Shirley-Anne Somerville, announced an Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment. The Independent Review was established for four main reasons.

• Society is changing very quickly, and Scotland should look to the future and consider whether our current qualifications and assessment system is fit for a potentially very different future.
• The international COVID-19 pandemic which highlighted dissatisfaction with Scotland’s qualifications. Following the cancellation of examinations in 2020 and 2021, and the alternative approaches taken to National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications, there was public concern about fairness and widespread dissatisfaction with results and perceptions of inequity.
• The evidence emerging from two OECD reports (OECD, 2021, Stobart, 2021) indicated a need for change in the Senior Phase.
• A longer-term dissatisfaction within Scotland about differences between the original intentions for Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) qualifications and learners’ experiences of them.

This Independent Review is concerned with Senior Phase qualifications in schools, colleges and wider educational settings. The focus is predominately learners aged 15-18 in all educational settings, but the Review also considered possible implications for home educated learners and for adult learners who study courses which fall within the Review’s remit.

When the Independent Review was commissioned, no-one could have anticipated what would happen during the review period. The Review began as a forward-looking investigation: how might qualifications and assessment evolve to ensure that every learner in Scotland gets the best possible life chance? The Review recognised that learners now entering education would still be working at the end of the 21^st century. Given the speed of societal change, qualifications and assessment should be fit for the future.

However, by the conclusion of the Independent Review, the anticipated level of change had been further accelerated by the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI will change society, but how the potential of these technologies can be used to improve rather than to damage societies is work in progress. The potential impact of AI makes this Independent Review even more important. Future qualifications and assessment will have to support learners, and Scottish society, in a world that will be very different from the one we currently inhabit. Equally, we must accept that the pace of change will increase and Scotland's approach to qualifications must be flexible and adaptable if it is to be able to respond.

The new approach to qualifications and assessment proposed in this report has been debated extensively by communities across Scotland (see Chapter Two). Extensive attempts have been made to stimulate discussions across communities and to try to include those whose voices have too often been missing from policy decision making. No proposal for change to qualifications and assessment will ever be universally supported, but the ideas contained in this report have been subject to extensive debate and the model proposed has been developed collaboratively. It is hoped education in Scotland will build from this process and, in addition, learn from the models developed in the National Discussion (2023) and the Career Review (2023) to build a more inclusive approach to the future design and development of policy and practice.

The independence of this Review is crucial. Advice on the future of qualifications and assessment in Scotland has to be impartial, developed from evidence and debated openly. The ideas contained in this report, if accepted by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Jenny Gilruth MSP, are the first stage in a longer-term development process. The cross-community collaborations developed in this Review should continue and learners, teachers and lecturers across the country should be at the heart of the change process.

Too many previous innovations in Scotland have faltered because insufficient attention was paid to the implications of how ideas might be put into practice and to the manageability of the timescale over which they were put in place. At this time, ensuring that change is appropriately supported is particularly important. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact that it had had on learners, teachers and families has been profound. It is remarkable that, even in such challenging times, there has been an almost unanimous call for qualifications and assessment to change.

1.1 The Current Context in Scotland

Scotland has a proud tradition of subject based study in secondary schools. Highly qualified teachers lead a wide range of subject options. Subject communities are strong and some subjects in some areas have extensive and supportive group networks.

Education settings across Scotland offer a range of Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) National Qualifications from National 1 to National 5, Highers and Advanced Highers, vocational, technical and professional qualifications. Indeed, different qualifications at the same SCQF level will also have different purposes and, as a consequence, leading to different learner pathways. Increasingly, in partnership with colleges and employers, a range of vocational, technical and professional qualifications, are offered to learners, for example Foundation Apprenticeships, Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, National Progression Awards and Personal Development Awards. School/college partnerships are more challenging in rural areas without easy access to a local college, although in some areas, college staff offer vocational, technical and professional courses in schools.

In addition, some learners have opportunities to engage with a wider array of experiences and awards in school and college and in communities which offer valuable learning experiences and development of skills, competencies, attitudes and dispositions. These include, for example: The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, The Prince’s Trust, The John Muir Award, Young Enterprise Scotland Company Award (Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) level 6), Award in STEM Leadership (SCQF levels 4,5,6 Scottish Schools Educational Research Centre (SSERC), The Caritas Award and Awards Scheme Development Accreditation Network (ASDAN) programmes. Not all awards are linked to the SCQF framework, but all offer valuable opportunities for learners.

There are many different options available supported by an Awards’ Network of providers eager to work with schools and colleges to promote broader opportunities for every learner. Opportunities vary across the country and learners have a number of ways in which they can and should be supported to show what they have achieved. All learners are different; some prefer to learn in a school environment, some enjoy college, and some excel in community-based learning.

Based on these programmes, Scotland has sophisticated networks of pathways which learners can take to progress through the system from school to further and higher education and to employment. While there has been a considerable increase in the breadth of qualifications that young people take in schools most learners also take subject based national qualifications.

Qualifications are set within the SCQF which comprises qualifications across levels 1-12. The level of a qualification shows how difficult the learning is. However, not all qualifications at the same level are of the same value. Each qualification in the SCQF framework has a number of credit points. Credit points describe the amount of learning necessary to achieve a qualification or learning programme at an SCQF level. Therefore, different courses on the same SCQF level may be very different in the demands they make of a learner.

Read more about the SCQF Interactive Framework here.

1.2 Qualifications and the Economy

Qualifications have a major role to play in the economy. Most learners after school, college or university move into the workplace and workplaces are changing fast. The World Economic Forum (2020) called this “a defining moment”. They argue that society has the tools at its disposal to respond to the jobs of tomorrow; technological innovation, the means to reskill and upskill. However, they caution that the efforts to put in place the strategies to support people “lag behind the speed of the disruption” They call for a “reset” as society sits at the crossroads between work tasks performed by humans and those undertaken by machines and algorithms. The changes about to take place, they suggest, can lead to fairer, more just societies or to “lost generations of adults and youth who will be raised into growing inequality, discord and lost potential.”

Just now, there is a window of opportunity. Qualifications should help learners to be ready to respond to current economic needs and shape future economic requirements. There is a strong relationship between a qualified workforce and economic growth in a period of huge uncertainty. And there is a strong relationship between a prosperous society and one able to provide high quality public services to all of its citizens. The World Economic Forum (2020) identifies top skills and skill groups which employers see as rising in prominence. These include critical thinking and analysis, problem-solving, and skills in self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. To be qualified for the future, these are skills that learners should have opportunities to develop, and qualifications should recognise their achievements in them.

In such a fast-changing landscape, any qualification and assessment system that is fit for the future will have to be sufficiently agile and flexible to be able to respond quickly to change. There is work to be done by businesses and The Government to identify future skills needs and The Government should work closely with businesses to consider possible implications. Countries around the world are thinking about how best to support learners for future change. For example, in Estonia, primary school age children study robotics. Qualifications and assessment systems that are well aligned to a relevant, empowering curriculum will help to ensure that learners in Scotland have high-quality options available to them.

1.3 A Changing Society

The current system of qualifications and assessment has served many learners well. However, future learners will move into a less predictable environment than learners from previous generations. Skills Development Scotland (SDS), (2022) describe the scale of anticipated change.

“The world is experiencing a historic transformation in how people work, where they work and even why they work. The skills we each need to enter and progress in work are changing too. As we face an unpredictable and rapidly evolving future, continuing to develop the right skills in response to this change will be critical for us all. The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly impacted the economy, labour market and society and new economic challenges are emerging.” (SDS, 2022)

Scotland is not alone in facing these challenges. OECD (2020) argues that globalisation and rapid changes in technology are increasing the pace of social, economic and environmental challenges internationally. Many of the challenges, also have opportunities for human advancement but for that potential to be realised, “citizens must be equipped to handle them via a high quality and appropriately designed education.” (OECD, 2020)

Many other jurisdictions are considering changes to their qualifications and assessment system (see Chapter Three). Scotland’s system must keep pace with this change.

Since the publication of the SDS report (2022) that heralded a “historic transformation”, even greater changes are underway. Recent developments in AI have been described as “The Industrial Revolution for Human Intellect’” (Soral, 2023). The speed of change is increasing. ChatGPT had 1 million users 5 days after its release. To put that in context, it took Netflix 3 ½ years to reach 1 million users, Twitter 2 years and Facebook 10 months (Ahmad, 2023).

By May 2023, Geoffrey Hinton, a leading figure in the creation of AI voiced concerns about what he perceived to be increasing risks emerging from the development of AI that could outperform humans. In an interview with the BBC (BBC News 2 May 2023), Hinton argued that AI, a digital system, was very different from human intelligence. Each individual AI Chatbot can learn separately but can share its knowledge with all other Chatbots. He compared it to being akin to having 10,000 people were when one person learned something that knowledge was immediately known by all 10,000 people. Still in its early stages, the impact of what AI might mean for future employment is already being seen. On 1 May, IBM’s CEO, Arvind Krishna, announced that they expect to stop employing people for roles that AI could undertake in the coming years.

The implications of AI for qualifications and assessment have been of particular interest to those who work in education. Reactions to the impact of AI on examinations and coursework have been varied. Schools Week (Booth, 2023) reported that in a statement to ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders) in England 10^th March 2023, Dr Jo Saxton, the Chief Regulator at OFQUAL (The Office of Qualifications and Examinations) argued that AI bots like ChatGPT made invigilated examinations more important than ever and suggested that if she were running a centre, she would have students undertake coursework in examination conditions. On the other hand, the CEO of the International Baccalaureate (IB) proposed learning to live with AI, neither banning its use nor changing the nature of the IB programme which includes coursework. He argues:

The IB believes that AI technology will become part of our everyday lives - like spell checkers, translation software and calculators. We, therefore, need to adapt and transform our educational programmes and assessment practices so that students can use these new AI tools ethically and effectively.

The potential implications of AI on Scottish education will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter Four. However, it is beyond doubt that significant changes are already underway across society. No matter how effective our previous approach to qualifications and assessment may have been, it would represent a significant risk if we were to assume that what has served Scotland well in the past will continue to serve Scotland well in the future.

1.4 The Impact of COVID-19

The impact of COVID-19 on National Qualifications was a major driver for this Review. Hayward et al, (2023) report that when the pandemic struck in session 2019–2020 schools were closed, and it was not possible to run the national examinations and coursework, alternative ways of gathering evidence for qualifications had to be found quickly to limit potential harm to learners. The SQA asked teachers and lecturers, supported by national guidance and local authorities, to provide both estimated grades (A, B, C or D) and a rank order for learners taking National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses. SQA moderated these estimates using an algorithm based on historical attainment data and examiner judgement. This process of moderation resulted in twenty-six percent of grade estimates being changed (Hayward et al, 2023)

The planned process for the award of qualifications included an appeal opportunity, where schools and colleges could provide evidence to challenge any downgraded decision. However, when learners received their provisional results, on 4 August 2020, there was a public outcry. The use of historical data was seen to have discriminated against learners in less advantaged areas. Responding to public concern, The Scottish Government directed SQA to reinstate teacher or lecturer estimates. This direction occurred before the appeals stage of the awarding process was able to be applied.

Following the problems with the 2020 qualifications, The Scottish Government commissioned an Independent Rapid Review (Priestley et al, 2020). Priestley’s Review made a number of recommendations of interest to this Review including the need for greater transparency, enhanced collaboration and engagement (particularly with young people), a proportionate system for moderation and a move to a digital system.

The continuation of the pandemic throughout 2020–2021 resulted in the cancellation of examinations in 2021. The experience of the previous year led to the development of a different approach, the Alternative Certification Model (ACM). Teachers and lecturers were asked to provide evidence to inform grading judgements, for example student performance on classwork or assignments. The nature of the pandemic meant that the timetable for the implementation of the ACM was short. Teachers and learners were told about using ACM in February ahead of grading in May. Moderation was carried out by schools, colleges and local authorities. SQA sampled evidence as a further layer of quality assurance. SQA undertook an evaluation of the ACM (SQA, 2021) where they found varied reaction to the ACM approach from SQA’s engagement with learners and teachers.

Teachers reported workload issues related to what were perceived to be intensive moderation processes and short implementation timelines. However, many, though not all, learners liked the approach. Many teachers indicated support for ACM but noted that a longer lead in time would have made it easier to adapt.

“Pupils that experienced the ACM model liked it. They would like 50/50 split for continuous assessment and a final exam, so that everything didn’t rely on your performance on one day.” – Kings Park Secondary School (Staff and Learners)

Coping with the crisis of a pandemic is not a model for change, but the qualifications model in Scotland, and indeed across the UK, was not sufficiently robust to deal with the impact of COVID-19. Other countries with different approaches to qualifications, for example, where learners were building credit over time and/or where a significant element of internal assessment contributed to the overall award, suffered far less disruption. In Scotland, the COVID-19 experience undermined confidence in the system of qualifications. Examinations that traditionally had been regarded as fair and equitable were perceived to discriminate against those who faced the greatest socio-economic challenges.

Although the extent to which the qualifications process during COVID-19 had been inequitable was disputed, the belief that the qualifications system had discriminated against learners from disadvantaged backgrounds persisted and undermined trust. In response to widespread concern about National Qualifications, a planned OECD Independent Review of CfE (OECD, 2021) was extended to include a particular focus on qualifications in the Senior Phase (Stobart, 2021).

1.5 The OECD Reports and the Case for Change

Two OECD reports on Scottish Education were published in 2021. The first report, “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence - Into the Future” (2021) recognised Scotland as one of the first countries to design a curriculum that looked to the needs of learners and Scotland as a society in the 21^st century. Nearly 20 years on:

“CfE continues to be a bold and widely supported initiative, and its design offers the flexibility needed to improve student learning further.” (OECD, 2021)

However, they suggested, work was needed to realise the potential of CfE in the Senior Phase:

“The structure, learning practices and assessment approaches in the Senior Phase also need adapting to be consistent with CfE’s Vision, and to allow for the smooth curriculum experience promised from 3 to 18.”

The second OECD Independent Review was undertaken by Professor Gordon Stobart, “Upper-secondary education student assessment in Scotland: A comparative perspective (2021)”. He sought to understand the causes for the perceived ‘misalignment’ between curriculum and assessment in the Senior Phase and to identify where change could lead to improvement.

Achieving Highers has been a shorthand in Scotland for high attainment for more than a century, sometimes described as the ‘gold standard’ of educational achievement. Many people in Scotland, for example, parents and employers, remember their own experiences in education and use those as a benchmark for current practices.

In cultures influenced by the traditions and values of UK curricula, qualifications are often seen as being synonymous with examinations (Stobart, 2021). National qualifications are commonly described as “the exams” even although before COVID-19, they included a range of approaches to assessment in addition to an external examination, for example, projects, essays, oral interaction, artefacts. In other jurisdictions, traditions are different. Some countries have very few formal examinations (see Chapter Three).

Building from these evidence sources, Stobart (2021) an internationally renowned assessment academic who has worked in research, policy and practice, made five recommendations for change to post-16 education in Scotland:

• explore the replacement of examinations at age 16 by a school graduation certificate;
• develop a more resilient upper-secondary assessment system;
• seek better alignment of assessment with curriculum and pedagogy through broadening the forms of assessment;
• systematically investigate students’ perceptions and views of assessment arrangements and;
• further develop the role of technical, vocational and professional qualifications in broadening the curriculum.

These recommendations helped form the Terms of Reference for this Review. The Review’s response to the Terms of Reference is presented in Chapter Six.

The range of purposes qualifications are asked to serve, the importance to individuals, institutions and wider society, and the fact that ideas about them are deeply embedded in the culture of a society, make qualifications notoriously difficult to change – in Scotland, across the UK and internationally. Very careful consideration has to be given to planning for change if and when change is necessary. (See Chapter Five).

“Assessment systems usually change gradually. The brake on any radical change may, in part, result from a social reluctance to change an established system. When a system has been in place for generations, parents, policy makers and teachers are familiar with it and value it – even when it may no longer be fit-for-purpose.” (Stobart, 2021, p30)

1.6 Curriculum for Excellence and the Senior Phase in Schools and Colleges

The view of Scottish education that the OECD presented, was familiar to many who work in education. Qualifications and assessment in the Senior Phase have become very different from what had been envisaged in the early days of CfE. Building the Curriculum 5: a framework for assessment (2011), provided the original national guidance on assessment and qualifications.

“The curriculum in the Senior Phase should be designed to meet the Principles of curriculum design and the entitlements set out for all learners in Building the Curriculum 3 and should include the four aspects of the curriculum (the ethos and life of the school as a community, curriculum areas and subjects, interdisciplinary learning and opportunities for personal achievement).” (p16)

The original intentions of CfE were clear. In Scottish schools and colleges, curriculum areas, subjects and programmes of study are the building blocks of education. They represent different ways of viewing the world and are an essential part of education in Scotland for all learners. CfE, as conceived, recognised the central role that subjects play in education but argued for more. The curriculum as experienced by every learner should include opportunities to study curriculum areas and subjects in depth but should also include engagement with the school as a community, opportunities to discover how learning connects across different areas of the curriculum and opportunities to individualise learning through personal achievement. What were described as “next generation qualifications” offered by SQA and other providers, should reflect the values and aspirations of CfE.

The original design of the new qualifications attempted to provide closer alignment between the curriculum and qualifications. The original National Qualifications were designed to gather evidence on what learners knew and understood and their skills and competences. Qualifications included a broad range of approaches to assessment. Ways of gathering evidence differed subject by subject: for example, art and design included a folio of work and physics a scientific project. Decisions about the nature of the qualification were taken by panels of subject specialists, based on what they perceived to be the best way to demonstrate learners’ achievements in the subject. Skills and competences were built into the programmes of study and recognised in the awards. SQA were asked to remove Units from National Courses against SQA’s advice, as the original assessment design was aligned to Building the Curriculum 5.

The Priestley report (2020) following the COVID experience of 2019 reported a very different learner experiences in the Senior Phase from those originally envisaged by the developers of CfE qualifications. These findings have subsequently been supported by evidence emerging in the Review from learners, parents and employers. Many learners’ experiences of CfE were entirely subject-focused. They had little awareness of the skills being developed through their qualifications and few had opportunities to engage in learning across subjects. They reported many of their learning experiences in the Senior Phase as repetitive and formulaic. It seemed to them that it was less important to demonstrate what they knew or understood than to use specific terms in an answer or to follow a predetermined pattern of response, for example, make a statement, back it up with a quotation and write a sentence referring to the statement and quotation. Many learners reported high levels of stress.

Similar findings were also reported in the Muir Review (2022) and in the National Discussion (2023). Angela Morgan (2018) in her review Support for Learning: All Our Children and All Their Potential’ expressed concern about: “the narrative around achievement’ and comments that ‘the system should be set up to recognise the particular achievements of children and young people which goes beyond SQA qualifications.” (Morgan, 2018, p114)

Morgan (2018) reported that learners with Additional Support Needs (ASN) often found accessing alternative assessment arrangements difficult and that these factors combined to have a negative impact on their wellbeing and their educational experiences. Some learners suggested that the system for them was not sufficiently challenging.

“If I’m being honest I didn’t feel very challenged academically in high school” Learner, SNAP – (Scottish Network for Able Pupils).

Headteachers reported that the evidence gathered to judge the quality of education in schools, accountability metrics, were driving behaviours in schools. Schools felt judged not by how well they were serving the needs of every learner but by how many learners achieved National 5 and Higher qualifications. Learners, it was reported, were at times advised to take qualifications that would be more valuable for school metrics than those best suited to their strengths. Learners constantly referred to being over-examined. Indeed, many teachers, learners and parents expressed concerns about the three consecutive years of examinations in the Senior Phase.

Teachers reported a sense of constant pressure to “get through the curriculum” in a series of “two-term dashes”. There was little satisfaction amongst some teachers and learners with qualifications as taught and learned in the Senior Phase, little sense of deep learning in schools and classrooms, only a sense of people in a system driven to find ever more efficient ways to predict and practise for examinations. All learning involves practice and making sure that learners understand how examinations work and how to perform well in them is important, but, taken to extreme, it will dominate learning and teaching, narrow the curriculum and demotivate learners. That is the current position in Scotland as reported by large numbers of learners, teachers and parents and carers.

The approaches taken to assessment in colleges and universities have changed radically in recent years. Examinations are part of the landscape, but many courses now are heavily weighted towards alternative ways to gather evidence of achievement, for example, essays, projects (individual and group), oral assessment, self and peer assessment, poster presentations. Employers, use a wider range of ways to gather evidence of employee learning such as; digital on-line responsive assessment, group tasks, augmented reality. In Early Years, in primary and in the early years of secondary education, a broad range of approaches to assessment are used to support learning and build progression. In some ways, it is upper secondary education in Scotland that is out of kilter.

1.7 Summary

There is a convincing case that the current system of qualifications and assessment in Scotland needs to change. Evidence to support this position includes:

• analysis of the future of society in Scotland in a global context where the pace of change will require a more flexible system of qualifications and assessment to allow the education system to be able to respond to fast changing circumstances;
• the recent experience of COVID-19, the significant challenges faced by the system in responding to the pandemic and questions of fairness that arose from results;
• national research and international reports on Scottish education emphasising the gaps between the aspirations of the curriculum in Scotland and learners’ experiences particularly in National Qualifications. Other countries have recognised similar issues and have been implementing reforms to their qualifications systems;
• reviews and reports that question whether the current system serves all learners equitably and adequately recognises and values their wider achievements and;
• gaps identified by employers between the current skill base of learners exiting the Senior Phase and the skills required to help the economy to grow and broader society to thrive.

The Independent Review set out to explore how Scotland might best respond to these challenges. As part of the wider Reform process in Scotland, the Muir Report (2022) identified how the education system in Scotland should change to support learners and teachers more effectively. Entitled, “Putting Learners at the Centre”, the report highlighted the need for Scottish Education to recognise what mattered most; learners and the quality of their educational experiences. All systems and structures should have the wellbeing of learners as their core concern in the context of the purposes articulated in Article 29 of the UNCRC, (1989). However, for that to happen, Muir (2022) argued that the education system in Scotland had to change. There is;

“the need for significant cultural and mindset change at all levels. This needs to be based around a shared Vision signed up to by all stakeholders which gives absolute primacy of focus on individual learners and their diverse needs.” (Muir 2022, p14).

These themes became the starting point for this Independent Review: the need to identify a future qualification and assessment system that would serve learners and Scotland as a society well and be undertaken in a way that would signal a change in culture. That would mean putting learners at the centre and developing, amongst all stakeholders, a shared Vision for the future of qualifications and assessment.

Recommendation 1: Change Qualifications and Assessment in the Senior Phase in Scotland. Change must be carefully planned and resourced.

1.8 Outline of this report

• Chapter Two of this report describes the ways in which the Independent Review sought to involve all communities with a stake in the future of qualifications and assessment.
• Chapter Three looks beyond Scotland to consider how other countries are tackling the challenge of developing qualification and assessment systems that are fit for the future and how practice elsewhere might relate to the Scottish context.
• Chapter Four drawing on the wide range of sources of evidence described in previous Chapters, presents the Vision and Principles for the future qualifications and assessment in Scotland and proposes a new approach.
• Chapter Five sets out a route map for how the Scottish education system and Scottish society more generally might move from current practice to a new system. This part of the Report identifies the contributions that different communities can make to the realisation of the Review’s Vision and Principals and identifies the resource implications of change.
• Chapter Six lists recommendations for the future of qualifications and assessment in Scotland.

Not everyone will agree with everything in this report. However, what is recommended commands wide support within and beyond the Independent Review Group.