On the 21st of June, an independent review was released commenting on the failure of the Scottish education system. The Scottish Green Party showed support for the recommendations and the proposals of the report.
“This report is a damning judgement of Scotland’s exams system and the body which oversees it, so the news that the SQA is effectively being abolished is certainly welcome.“
– Ross Greer
A damning review : What is the OECD Report?
An independent report was published by les ‘Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’ (OECD). This is a Paris-based agency qui evaluates the Scottish education system, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), Scotland’s national awarding and accreditation body.
According to an article in The Guardian, the report stated that the Scottish education system had failed to keep pace with the latest best practices and had no long-term strategies or vision. The report added that the current system was “cumbersome and over-complex”
The report lays out proposals and recommendations, including changing the exam and qualifications system, abolishing the Scottish Qualifications Authority, and changes in the curriculum design.
Click here to see the executive summary for the OECD report.
Rumors about delaying the decision to abolish the Scottish Qualifications Authority
The publication of the report created some controversies among Scottish ministers; according to The Guardian. The opposition suspects that the government delayed the publication of the report, especially the decision to scrap SQA because of its potential drawbacks to the elections which took place on May 6th 2021.
Scottish politician serving as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party ,Nicola Sturgeon, était blamed for delaying the decision to abolish Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
Greens commenting on the report and abolishment of SQA
On July 24 2021, Ross Greer; Scottish Greens’ Education, Culture and External Affairs spokesperson, called the rumours about delay of the publication of the report a “disingenuous bullshit” on Twitter. He further said that “The SNP would probably have lost fewer votes from teachers if they’d been able to announce this pre-election!”
Additionally, he commented on the report on a press release on The Scottish Greens’ website. He said “This report is a damning judgement of Scotland’s exams system and the body which oversees it, so the news that the SQA is effectively being abolished is certainly welcome. As we already knew, the principles of Curriculum for Excellence are sound, but it is near impossible for teachers to deliver in S4-6, because they are stuck teaching to a century-old assessment system instead. It’s a failure of the government that the exams system was left largely untouched when the new curriculum was introduced a decade ago. As a result, completely unnecessary barriers have been put in the way of hundreds of thousands of pupils.”
If you want to learn more about the OECD report, click here.
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