What has SSBA done about the Exam Fiasco

In March and again in April of this year SSBA alerted SQA and the Minister for Education and Children about problems being faced in schools with regard to the electronic transfer of data between schools and SQA.

Schools had experienced difficulties as far back as the October deadline for submission of entries because the new Phoenix system continually corrupted the information fed into it. Candidates who were entered for one subject inexplicably appeared 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 disks being sent to SQA in December.

In February SQA responded with a list of errors but these were minor, dealing mainly with addresses and candidate numbers. By March the schools had received a print 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 English. It was further reported that random units were missing from individual entries which meant that these pupils would not be eligible for the course awards since it would appear that they had not successfully completed all the units.

As far back as March SQA had identified the possibility that there may be errors on certificates issued to candidates so we knew that major implications could arise. Schools raised the many other concerns at the time. 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?

This was a nightmare for teachers but nothing like the nightmare they are facing at the moment. Those of them who are also markers for the exam system are having their credibility taken into question and this is so unfair. They carry no blame in the current shambles.

There can be no parents out there at the moment who are not deeply grateful to the teachers particularly in secondary schools who are not only facing the start of a new academic year but are also facing the backlash of the whole exams fiasco. But it’s not only teachers who parents should be thanking for taking their children through this crisis, its also the overworked members of the office staff in schools who are having to administer this nightmare.

Having brought all this to the attention of the public it is ironic that Sam Galbraith on the BBC television programme "Failing the Grade" recently, and Alf Young in the recent columns of ‘The Herald’ newspaper attacked the Chief Executive personally for her involvement in this situation.

Sam Galbraith accused her of never attending SQA meetings and told the general public that although SSBA had said they had alerted his office to the problem in March/April, in fact no record of any correspondence had been found - how convenient and how wrong.

Alf Young in ‘The Herald’ article also related to her non-attendance at meetings of SQA. Here is someone else who should check his facts first.

Donald Dewar, the First Minister, appointed Ann Hill to SQA in March. For the past five years she has also been an active member of the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum. When she was approached by the SQA to become a Board member she explained to them that because of her commitment to the Scottish CCC and the fact that they were currently merging with SCET, she might not be in a position to attend as many of the SQA meetings as she would wish. However, she managed to attend meetings in March, June and November 1999 and August 2000.

It is time to get the focus back on the pupils who have so cruelly been robbed of their successes in the millennium year. None of them have any confidence in the levels they have received, in the SQA or in the Government.

Let’s get politics out of this mess. We owe it to our children to ensure that there is no repeat of this situation ever again.

Alan Smith, President, SSBA

Suggestions for dealing with the appeals system

The following letter was sent to the Education Minister for discussion in a meeting with SQA, Directors of Education, Unions, etc. There were no parent representatives invited to attend the meeting.

Dear Sam

EXAM APPEALS

We are now facing an expected high increase in the number of appeals in the current exam crisis. In Dumfries and Galloway alone, the Education Committee reported yesterday that they expect a 200% increase in the number of appeals.

There are many important questions which will be dealt with over a period of time by the various inquiries which are due to take place, e.g. what went wrong, why, who was to blame, and how do we fix it so that it doesn’t happen again.

However, the most important question in the minds of pupils and their parents is how the appeals will be carried out and will they meet the necessary deadlines. We must also take into consideration that schools will now be making arrangements for next years cohort to be entered into the electronic data gathering process between schools and SQA. It is vitally important that the appeals for this year do not interfere with the registration for next year.

May we offer three suggestions which have been put to SSBA by parents for your consideration:

1. If teachers are to be encouraged to deal with appeals at the weekends then there must be an attractive financial package put forward. This method would cause no disruption to learning and teaching in schools for pupils. However, it would have to be recognised that many teachers use their weekends to administer papers for their current classes.
2. Agree to use the schools predictions for this year only.
3. Close all secondary schools for two or three days, or for as long as necessary to blitz the appeals and get them out of the way. Parents may be sympathetic to the idea of closing schools for two or three days to free teachers to get on with the job of tackling appeals.

Our children have suffered enough from this disaster and radical action has to be taken. It is time for politics to take a back seat to allow teachers and SQA to get on with the job.

The current concern from both pupils and their parents seems to be confidence in the results and until we get this right we have no hope of convincing our young people that it is worth taking exams next year.

SSBA would be happy to meet with you to discuss the way forward and I look forward to hearing your comments.

Ann Hill, Chief Executive, SSBA