Glasgow’s young people deserve better than this SQA exams fiasco

And they say an apology by the SNP’s Deputy Leader in Glasgow City Council, David McDonald, has piled pressure on Education Secretary John Swinney, who is facing the prospect of a ‘no confidence’ vote in the Scottish Parliament.

Mr McDonald has been reported saying : “To the young people impacted, I’m sorry the system has let you down.”

And he has urged students to speak to their schools and teachers, and to make use of the appeals system.

The Scottish Labour Party has also called for Mr Swinney to apologise to the tens of thousands of students who saw their grades marked down.

Data from the SQA shows that children from poorer backgrounds were twice as likely to have their grades marked down than their better off counterparts.

Glasgow Labour’s Education spokesperson, Bailie Soryia Siddique, said: “David McDonald’s apology is welcome – but it’s clear he doesn’t understand the scale of the debacle in Glasgow’s schools. Why should it be incumbent on already over-stretched and hardworking teachers to fix the Scottish Government’s and SQA’s own spreadsheet mistake?

“Pressure is building on the SNP’s own Education Secretary to apologise, but crucially, to do something about it. The professional judgement of teachers and educators has been swept aside, and the hard work and dedication of so many young people across Glasgow has been ignored, in a system that reinforces the very inequalities in education that we’ve been trying to overcome.

“Glasgow’s young people deserve so much better than this.”

The Scottish Government has faced widespread criticism over the grading system that replaced exams, which were cancelled in Scotland for the first time ever due to coronavirus.

The system, produced by the SQA and approved by the Government, saw 26.2 per cent of grades changed during the moderation process based on criteria that included schools’ historic performances – with a total of 124,564 pupils’ results downgraded.

Hundreds of pupils took to Glasgow’s George Square on Friday morning to protest this year’s system of awarding exam results.

The First Minister said the controversial process was “effectively statistical moderation” and argued results would not have been “credible” if the pass rate of the most-deprived pupils had risen by the 19.8 per cent estimated by teachers before moderation.

Both Nicola Sturgeon and Mr Swinney have defended the system, stressing that the appeals process would allow eligible pupils to challenge their results if they were downgraded from teachers’ estimates.