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Education and Skills Committee 19 September 2018

19 Sep 2018 · S5 · Education and Skills Committee

Item of business

2018 Exam Diet (Curriculum and Attainment Trends)

Dr Janet Brown (Scottish Qualifications Authority) Watch on SPTV

I have some very brief comments to explain the role of the Scottish Qualifications Authority. As the committee will know, we are required to develop, validate, quality assure and award all the qualifications that we are talking about today, and we certificate those every August. As we have heard, what subjects are taken is very much a decision for schools, but it is our responsibility to ensure that qualifications are available for people to enter for. On the point that Dr Shapira has just made, it is important to say that we have data on the number of people who have attained our qualifications only based on the entries; it is not based on the school roll. This year, we saw a change in the volume of entries, with small reductions continuing at Scottish credit and qualifications framework levels 5 and 6 and a very slight increase at levels 2, 3, 4 and 7. We saw a small increase in attainment in the wider area of qualifications that we make available, both in wider achievement awards and in vocational qualifications at SCQF levels 2 to 6. Attainment across national courses and awards this year was broadly in line with what we have seen in previous years, as we saw a slight increase in attainment at advanced higher and a decrease at national 5. In August, we also published high-level data for a longer period of time, from 2011 to 2018. As we have heard from other panel members, the new qualifications were introduced in 2014, so the data prior to that year also included standard grade qualifications. I would like to place some caveats on which comparisons are possible between pre-2014 and post-2014 figures; some of those figures can be used. Before the introduction of the new national qualifications, candidates were generally entered for two levels of standard grade, which would be either credit and general or foundation and general. However, the grades that they were awarded would have depended on how they had done on those qualifications, so it is very difficult to look at entries at SCQF levels in the standard grade era. However, we can compare attainment in SCQF levels for the prior period, when standard grades existed, with the qualifications that are currently in place. For instance, a learner who performed poorly in both general and credit assessments could have been awarded a foundation qualification, which makes the entries a little bit of a mess. However, we can definitely compare on attainment. We can also compare entries if we add the figures for levels 3, 4 and 5 together in both systems. I am sorry that that sounds a little complicated, but the point is important. It is also important to say that we can look at attainment volumes, which is the number of learners who are gaining qualifications at SCQF levels across the piece, and which is a very meaningful measure. We have seen a decline in that over the years all the way back to before the introduction of the curriculum for excellence. As other panel members have pointed out, it varies by subject, so we have undertaken work to look at attainment levels in, for example, English, maths, sciences and languages. That is included in our submission, but I will be very happy to take any questions on the data that we have provided.

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Education and Skills Committee 19 September 2018

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