New legislation passed last night will result in the replacement of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, despite claims from opposition parties that the new body will be “little more than a rebrand”.
Both Labour and the Conservatives voted against the Education (Scotland) Bill, which will lead to the establishment of Qualifications Scotland this autumn, after this year’s SQA results on 5 August.
The passing of the legislation comes almost five years after the 2020 exams debacle, when marks for nearly 125,000 students were downgraded - following the scrapping of exams as a result of the Covid pandemic - until the Scottish government performed a U-turn.
New qualifications body ‘will be different’
As the legislation was passed by 69 votes to 47 in the Scottish Parliament, education secretary Jenny Gilruth said it would “fundamentally create a new and a different type of organisation which works with the teaching profession differently”.
The vote will also lead to the establishment a new chief inspector of education. Ms Gilruth gave a “cast-iron guarantee” that the person who takes up this post will have “suitable teaching and educational leadership experience”.
She added: “The new inspectorate body will also have greater independence and the power to set the frequency and focus of inspections, moving this function away from ministers to His Majesty’s chief inspector.”
The legislation, passed after two nights of late sittings at Holyrood, will provide “the scaffolding which supports the wider range of education reform”, Ms Gilruth said.
However, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Labour’s education spokesperson, said: “Instead of abolishing the SQA today, the bill allows the current leadership to transfer wholesale.
“We needed a qualifications system fit for the future, one that respects the efforts of learners, supports the judgment of teachers and earns the trust of employers and universities.
“We needed a curriculum that is broad and inclusive, we needed an inspectorate that can challenge where necessary but also celebrate excellence. But on reform this is a job unfinished.”
‘Little more than a rebrand’
Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservatives’ education spokesperson, said the changes would not deliver the “meaningful reform for Scotland’s education system which is urgently needed”.
He argued that the new exams body would be “little more than a rebrand of the SQA”.
Mr Briggs added: “The SQA needed an overhaul, not a cosmetic makeover, and the changes proposed fall way short of what is required to ensure the organisation can operate effectively and is properly accountable.”
With many Scottish schools on holiday at the end of this week, Mr Briggs said: “It does feel like the bill has been rushed through Parliament in the last week of term.”
Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said: “This is an opportunity missed to improve the learning environment of pupils and students and the working conditions of Scotland’s teachers and lecturers.”
She added: “Teachers have been clear that their professional voice must be central to decision making in the new national agencies, particularly Qualifications Scotland. We are less than persuaded that the bill will deliver this and the meaningful culture change that is so urgently required.
“Teachers, lecturers, learners and their families need to be convinced through the actions of the new agency that the bill amounts to more than a rebranding exercise.”
EIS scepticism
Ms Bradley said that the retention of the accreditation function in Qualifications Scotland had “done nothing to change this perception, and the prospect of yet another review two years down the line simply prolongs the process, postponing implementation of essential reforms and adding to the frustrations of teachers, lecturers and other stakeholders”.
She was also sceptical about the changes to inspection.
“Whilst the EIS noted the stated intent that the chief inspector’s office should be independent of government, in reality the provisions of the bill do not provide this assurance or, indeed, any real clarity about governance and the role of teachers in this new inspectorate,” Ms Bradley said.
“With Scottish ministers having power over key reporting functions, staffing and funding arrangements, we are not confident that the legislative changes enable the requisite meaningful change for inspection outlined in the [2022] Muir review.”
She added that a “first step would be to put an end to the insidious practice of labelling schools through grading processes”.
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