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28 September 2000
Ian Cowan
Assistant Clerk
Education, Culture and Sport Committee
Room 2.7 Committee Chambers
Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
Dear Ian
SSBA SUBMISSION - 2 OCTOBER 2000
EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORT COMMITTEE
Inquiry into Schools Exam Results
May I firstly thank you for the invitation to provide evidence to the Convenor and Members of the above committee on the subject of the Schools Exam Results.
I would also confirm the names submitted to you on Monday of this week when we met during the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee meeting. Members of SSBA who will be accompanying me are as follows:
I enclose SSBA’s evidence and would be grateful if you would send copies to the Committee members.
Yours sincerely
Ann Hill
Chief Executive
SSBA
SSBA Submission
Education, Culture and Sport Committee - 2 October 2000
Inquiry into Schools Exam Results
Terms of reference - SSBA evidence
In a leaflet issued to parents in March 1997 (1) the Scottish Qualifications Authority states "One of the most important tasks the SQA carries out is making sure that its qualifications are of a high and consistent quality. This is crucial to the whole idea of qualifications - they need to be seen as reliable, relevant and trustworthy to ensure that people value them.
There is real concern being expressed both in letters to SSBA (2) and in the press with regard to the effect of late certification on pupils. Students who are going to university this year have been given priority over all others. Students who are appealing against Standard Grade results are not expected to get their results until Christmas.
Some of the students who started Higher courses in the 2000/2001 term are uncertain whether or not they will be allowed to continue should their appeals be turned down. The stress on these pupils is devastating. Teachers are not only having to deal with the problems of last year’s exams, but are also having to implement this year’s exam diet along with coping with pupil and teacher stress.
School Boards are concerned that those pupils who do not get their Higher results in time for UCAS placement in a university of their choice may have to move to other cities to gain entry.
Legal advice sought by SSBA and quoted in the current edition of SSBA’s newsletter ‘Grapevine’ (3) argues that any pupil who has gone through the trauma and distress of awaiting delayed exam results is entitled to a nominal amount of compensation for the anxiety they have had to endure. Others may have a much more substantial claim if they can show that they missed out on a college or university place as a result of the negligence of SQA. Any claim may include payment of one year’s salary for any pupils who find themselves one year behind in their careers as a result of the mess.
Shortage of markers, teachers being asked to remain in school during the holidays in order to allow SQA to contact them for missing information and the reported use of probationer teachers as markers all give cause for concern.
The crisis which has developed at SQA only became fully apparent on 10 August, the day fixed for the issue of certificates to students who sat examinations in the May/June diet. However, it had already been evident for some time before that date that the SQA were experiencing considerable difficulties.
The following examples illustrate the nature and extent of the problems experienced before 10 August:
However, from October 1999 to March 2000 member Boards raised concerns with SSBA over the new computer system at SQA. The Phoenix system in particular was reportedly corrupting information which was being transferred from schools. Schools were concerned that pupil details which were being lost would result in pupils not being able to sit exams because they were not named on the list and that not enough papers would be available on the day of the exam.
In March 2000 SSBA received a copy of an email from Banchory Academy to SQA (4) along with details of problems being faced at the time. These were similar to problems which SSBA was being alerted to from other schools.
In March 2000 SSBA sent this correspondence to SQA and the Chief Executive of SSBA spoke to Ron Tuck, Chief Executive of SQA who directed the enquiry to David Elliott and Bill Arundel of SQA.
The problems faced by schools between October and March included candidates who were entered for one subject inexplicably appearing as entered for Gaelic despite the fact that the school didn’t offer Gaelic. Eventually this and other problems were corrected after many hours work by teachers and office staff in schools as well as numerous discs being sent to SQA by schools.
In February SQA responded to schools with a list of errors but these were minor dealing mainly with addresses and candidate numbers. By March the schools had received a printout of the information sent in December listing individual candidate entries. The important thing to note here is that according to the files held in one particular school every pupil was correctly entered for each subject. However, the school reported having found errors in almost every subject and most noticeably where 80 students were not accounted for in Maths and 25 were missing from the English list. It was further reported that random units were missing from individual entries which meant that these pupils would not be eligible for the course award since it would appear that they had not successfully completed all the units.
As far back as March 2000 SQA had identified the possibility that there may be errors on certificates issued to candidates. Schools raised many other concerns at the time, e.g. Had UCAS and the universities been warned about this, would youngsters be rejected for entry because they may not have passed according to incomplete certificates and if there were errors how and when would they be corrected?
Following several telephone calls to SQA, SSBA wrote to SQA and to the Minister Education and Children on 3rd April. (5) SSBA expressed concern to SQA at the level of enquiries SSBA was receiving with regard to the new Phoenix Computer System which SQA was using to transfer information between schools and the SQA computer centre. SSBA also wrote to the Minister with a copy of the correspondence asking for his comments.
The ‘Herald’ newspaper (front page) and the BBC also carried SSBA concerns at the beginning of April.
On the 5th April SSBA Chief Executive received a letter from the Chairman of SQA(6) inviting her to meet with Ron Tuck and David Elliott so that they could outline the situation with the new APS system. He also referred in the letter to "the introduction of a new computer system at any time in any organisation causes great stress and that is certainly so within SQA". She was also reassured in the letter, as other Board members had been assured, that any problems had been identified and were being dealt with by an extremely dedicated and hard-working staff.
Mrs Hill’s response dated 24 May 2000 (7) accepted the invitation to go to SQA and discuss the problem of Phoenix but suggested that it would be better to wait until the current round of examinations were complete and certificates had been awarded. "This would allow us to see if the system had worked".
SSBA concerns were raised at SQA Board level along with the concerns of other members with direct links to schools, colleges and universities.
Although concerns were continually discussed at SSBA Executive Board level between April and the end of the school term in June, SSBA were continually told that the problems were small and that ‘everything would be all right’. As an SQA Board member, the Chief Executive had no reason to believe that there was anything different to tell the Executive Board of SSBA.
On 6th July SSBA wrote to SQA (8) to ask if one of the officers would come to the Executive Board meeting on the 2nd September to tell SSBA Executive Board members about the exam system and Higher Still in particular. Ron Tuck accepted the invitation and informed SSBA that David Elliot would attend on behalf of SQA. (9)
Immediately following the results coming out in August 2000, parents, School Boards, teachers and pupils contacted SSBA for help and advice. One of their main frustrations was not being able to get reliable advice from SQA. The information coming from SQA changed on a daily basis.
Dr Dennis Gunning, Development Director at SQA attended his first public seminar since the start of the exam fiasco when he presented a paper to the Executive Board of SSBA on the 2nd September. His presentation discussed the role of SQA, the range of qualifications offered by SQA and the management arrangements of SQA. (10) Dr Gunning also expressed SQA’s appreciation of the SSBA’s Chief Executive in her role as an SQA Board member.
Dr Gunning accepted our invitation to submit an article for the current edition of ‘Grapevine’ which has now been circulated to all schools and interested parties including MSPs.
SQA failed to answer the concerns raised time and again by schools and SSBA with regard to the new computer system and its continuing late development. SSBA is concerned that SQA under estimated the demands of Higher Still and would urge that SQA talk with teachers at the chalk face with regard to this issue.
At the start of this year’s session schools embarked on many of the new courses available within the Higher Still programme. The first Higher Still examinations were sat in May/June of this year.
It was anticipated that the SQA would be well placed to handle the certification this year due to its reputation for past years service. A new and sophisticated computer system was installed at SQA and it was believed that this would cope well with all new certification processes.
Several parents, pupils and teacher members of School Boards have expressed concern that the implementation of Higher Still may have had a direct impact on the situation created by the lack of data management at SQA. Headteachers have expressed their support for the new assessment processes although most people would welcome the opportunity of review.
SSBA would see the role of the Scottish Executive being to ensure that a proper context is created within which the examination process can operate.
In a television interview on Wednesday 27 September, a Headteacher in Dumfries and Galloway advised the public that he had written to parents alerting them to the fact that he would be prepared to consider asking his local education authority to use the English Examination Boards instead of going back to SQA next year. As the Headteacher is also a Director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council this should raise real concern to both the Government and the SQA.
This whole fiasco has been a nightmare for teachers but nothing like the nightmare they are facing at the moment. SQA and the Government ignored the concerns of teachers this year. They must involve teachers in correcting and improving the system for next year.
There is no evidence that the software problems identified by SSBA in March have been corrected. SQA need to ensure that software development can now cope with next year’s exam results and there must be a way of ensuring that this is externally validated on a regular basis.
Resources, both in human and financial terms must be sufficient to ensure that there are enough staff to deal with the problems being faced at the moment. There is a real concern that the registration of pupils for the 2001 diet will be affected by the data management problems of the present situation.
The many current enquiries going on at the moment will hopefully find out what went wrong, why, who was to blame and come up with recommendations for putting it right so that this situation never happens again.
It has become evident in the past week that regular meetings took place between the senior management of SQA and the Civil Servants at the Scottish Executive Education Department who we presume would have rehearsed their concerns with the Minister. There is perhaps a need for the appointment of independent assessors between the SQA and the Scottish Executive.
Members of HM Inspectorate were regular attendees at all Council meetings of the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum. SSBA’s Chief Executive was a member of Council for five years until its amalgamation with SCET. Such attendance at SQA meetings would be informative for Board members and the Minister alike in the future.
The Minister has set up a task force which includes the Directors of Education, representatives of ADES, Scottish Colleges, the independent sector and representatives of teachers and headteachers. SSBA is disappointed that the Minister did not see the need to have School Boards represented. However, we welcome the setting up of this group to consider how best to take forward the appeals system for the 2000 diet of exams.
Our immediate concern must be for the young people who have suffered through no fault of their own and for their teachers who continue to support them through this difficult period in their lives. So many of them have been so badly let down.
Teachers and students alike have delivered their side of the ‘Higher Still’ bargain. The SQA failed to deliver their side.
SSBA
28 September 2000
List of letters, reports, etc., attached.
