Scotland’s education secretary has been warned that failing to remove responsibility for accrediting and regulating qualifications from the body that replaces the Scottish Qualifications Authority could “undermine the entire reform programme”.
Today at a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee, Jenny Gilruth committed to enabling cross-party discussion on the issue after coming under pressure from opposition MSPs, who insisted that the status quo is unacceptable.
However, Ms Gilruth also warned there is “no simple solution” and that looking for alternatives at this stage would “delay education reform” at a time when she is “constantly, as cabinet secretary, being asked to move at pace”.
Originally the Scottish government committed to replacing the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and reforming curriculum development and inspection body Education Scotland by last year.
Ms Gilruth, however, paused education reform after becoming cabinet secretary in 2023, arguing that it was “not the right time to introduce legislation” when teachers and schools were still dealing with the fallout from the Covid pandemic.
Questions over Scottish education reforms
The expectation is that the new bodies will be up and running by autumn of this year - although Tes Scotland recently revealed that there are “challenges” with that timeline.
Now the government faces gridlock after MSPs lodged more than 350 amendments to the education bill that will deliver the new qualifications body and independent inspectorate - a figure that has been described as “astonishing” by Scottish Labour.
Where responsibility should sit for accrediting and regulating qualifications was described today by the Green Party MSP and education spokesperson Ross Greer as “the single most challenging issue”.
Currently the SQA awards qualifications as well as accrediting and regulating them.
But a “plethora” of amendments have been put forward over this dual role, according to the Liberal Democrat MSP and education spokesperson Willie Rennie. He argued that any one of them would be better than the status quo, which both the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2021 and Professor Ken Muir in 2022 said should not continue.
Professor Muir said in his report that the SQA carrying out both functions amounted to the body “marking its own homework”, and that splitting the functions would “restore the trust and confidence of the public, practitioners and learners” and “significantly strengthen the oversight of qualifications in Scotland”.
However, the government rejected the recommendation shortly after his report was published, saying there were “significant benefits to locating the functions in the new qualifications body”.
Nevertheless, the issue has not gone away - with the Higher history debacle arguably providing more weight to the argument that the body that replaces the SQA should no longer “mark its own homework”.
At today’s education committee meeting a number of options were put forward: Mr Rennie argued for the accreditation function to sit with ; Scottish Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy proposed moving it to a reformed Education Scotland as originally proposed by Professor Muir in his 2022 report; and Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr made the case for handing responsibility for accreditation and regulation of qualifications to the inspectorate.
However, Ms Gilruth said placing the accreditation function in Education Scotland - an executive agency of the Scottish government - would bring it “under much closer control of Scottish ministers, something which I do not think members would want to see”.
The SCQF Partnership, meanwhile, is not a public body but a registered charity, Ms Gilruth said, so this would have implications for accountability as well as for staff who would “no longer be public servants”.
Ms Gilruth’s proposal is to maintain the status quo in the short-term to enable a smooth transition to Qualifications Scotland but carry out a review of accreditation in two years’ time. However, this was given short shrift by the committee.
That would put staff “into limbo for another two years”, said Ms Duncan-Glancy - who also described the proposal as “a delaying tactic”.
However, because the SNP is a minority government it has no choice but to reach out to other MSPs for support.
For his part, Mr Greer was clear that if the government could not achieve a consensus, the only option would be to choose the “least worst” or “least imperfect” alternative. His preference was Mr Kerr’s proposal to place accreditation with the inspectorate, he said.
Mr Kerr stressed the importance of sticking with “the expert view”. Where accreditation sits is “not a mere technical detail”, he said. Failing to get that aspect of reform right had the potential to “undermine” the entire programme.
“The government has said that it wants a qualifications body that is modern, trusted and fit for purpose but that cannot be achieved by merging old functions under new names,” Mr Kerr said.
“It requires structural separation. It requires clear independent lines of scrutiny. It requires the courage to follow the evidence even when the evidence demands fundamental change.”
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