Covid in Scotland: Cancelling Higher exams cannot be ruled out

The Scottish government has not ruled out cancelling Higher exams in Scotland next year and will make a final decision in mid-February.

Last month Education Secretary John Swinney confirmed there would be no National 5 exams in 2021.

But he told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland the "latest point" he could make such a call for Highers would be the first break after Christmas

On Tuesday GCSE and A-levels in Wales were cancelled for 2021.

Asked whether Scotland might follow suit, Mr Swinney, said: "The latest point at which we can take that decision will be the February break, around about the middle of February.

"Obviously we will be looking very carefully at what is the degree of disruption to young people and what is the state of the pandemic at that stage.

"It is quite a long way off but we have to make sure that we have the effective contingency plans in place."

Mr Swinney, who will appear before a committee of MSPs at Holyrood later, added that ministers would be closely monitoring the situation going into the new year.

On whether there was an argument for giving clarity now, Mr Swinney acknowledged there are a broad range of opinions on the subject and said he has looked carefully at it.

He added: "I concluded that there was a very clear desire among stakeholders for the Highers and Advance Highers to take their course because they are of course, the passport to the next stage of education, work and life for young people.

"That was also very strongly the view that I heard from young people into the bargain.

"It is a difficult question and it is one that we reflect on very carefully because we want to make sure young people are able to have certification for their achievements."

After summer 2020 exams were cancelled because of the pandemic, Prof Mark Priestley was commissioned to conduct a review of what had happened.

His report, which was issued at the beginning of October, said Nat 5s should be cancelled and that Higher and Advanced Higher exams in 2021 "will go ahead".

Meanwhile, Mr Swinney has insisted that school attendance was holding up in the face of the coronavairus pandemic.

He was responding to a story in The Herald that in Lanarkshire about 1,000 pupils from both primary and secondary school had been off in the last month.

The education secretary told Good Morning Scotland: "I think it is important that we look at the sources of the infection. What I think is very clear from the information about the circumstance,s in which people have identified education as part of their contact tracing work, that is a very small proportion of positive cases that relate back to education.

"Now when you look into the particular outbreaks that take place that affect school pupils or staff we tend to find that those are cases where it has been an external community transmission that has happened. There is very little evidence of in-school transmission."