Covid in Scotland: Results day despite cancelled exams

Scottish school pupils are due to receive their official grades after formal exams were cancelled for the second year in a row.

Senior pupils sat a series of assessments in May following disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Teachers then decided their grades and informed students before the end of term.

The Scottish government has said those grades will not be changed when they are made official on Tuesday.

There were more than 200,000 entries for Higher and Advanced Higher courses this year.

Exams for those qualifications were cancelled in December, about two months after the National 5 exams were called off.

Minister said the final grades would be based on "teacher judgement supported by assessment".

But the process was criticised by some parents and pupils, who described the assessments as "exams by another name".

It comes a year after the Scottish government faced anger from pupils, parents and teachers over the previous results system introduced after lockdown in 2020.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) initially drew up grades using teacher estimates for each pupil which were then moderated using results from previous years.

However, this sparked an outcry after 125,000 results were downgraded, with claims the moderation system unfairly penalised children at schools which had historically not performed as well.

The government subsequently agreed to accept the original teacher estimates of grades.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who was education secretary at the time, said 2021 awards would "not be given or taken away on the basis of a statistical model or on the basis of a school's past performance".

The government has already announced wide-ranging changes to the education system, with the SQA to be replaced with a new agency overseeing the curriculum.

The Scottish Conservatives said information they had received on Higher results from five council areas suggested pupils had been "marked more harshly than last year".

Education spokesman Oliver Mundell said: "They have faced double the disruption of last year's pupils, who themselves had their learning experience upturned, yet the signs show that has not been fully factored in."

He added: "Pupils seem to have faced a postcode lottery. We warned this could happen when it became clear that young people would be sitting exams under inconsistent conditions, with wide variations in difficulty from council to council and even school to school."

It comes as Scottish business leaders have moved to assure school leavers that their qualifications will be valued as much as in any other year.

More than 100 employers and business groups, including the Scottish Retail Consortium, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Tourism Alliance, have backed a new Young Person's Guarantee.

It aims to provide everyone aged between 16 and 24 with the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering.

Group spokesman Sandy Begbie said: "My experience is widespread employer admiration for the fortitude and resilience young people have shown throughout all the challenges faced in the past year, and a solid commitment to create opportunities to help shape futures."

Meanwhile, Scotland's children's commissioner said the country "should celebrate everything that young people have achieved in the past two years of living through a pandemic".

Bruce Adamson said: "Children and young people have been incredible.

"The right to education is about ensuring that they develop their minds, body and talents to their fullest potential and the resilience, strength and courage that young people have demonstrated these past two years deserves the highest accolade."