Examination Diet 2001
The next item of business is a statement from Mr Jack McConnell on progress towards the 2001 examination diet. It would be helpful if members who wish to ask the minister questions would indicate that during the statement.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Following the partisan remark that the Minister for Transport and Planning made to Bruce Crawford during question time, will you remind the minister—
No.
—that she is equally accountable to SNP members—
No. I am sorry, but the remarks were not partisan.
They were.
Order. I listened carefully and the minister addressed herself first to two Labour members, then to one SNP member. That was the context in which she made the remarks, and I do not think that she was making a political attack on any particular member.
Further to that point of order. I ask the Presiding Officer to study carefully the Official Report of today's proceedings.
I will do so. I always do so.
I call Jack McConnell to make his statement on the 2001 examination diet.
To avoid the need for any further points of order to be made, I apologise in advance to both my Opposition colleagues for the fact that they received the statement later than would normally be the case. I am conscious that that was discourteous of me, given their support for our efforts to resolve the difficulties in our examination system.
I am pleased to have an opportunity this afternoon to make a statement about progress towards the 2001 examination diet. The statement is timely: the Easter holidays are approaching and young people across the country are preparing to do some hard revision for this year's exams.
I am sure that everyone in the Parliament can remember the mixture of anticipation and anxiety that characterised their schooldays. Our discussion this afternoon will range across a number of detailed areas, but it is important that none of us loses sight of what really matters here, which is for us to give young people the exam system that they deserve. At this testing time, we need to build confidence and allow our young people to concentrate on their studies.
Members of Parliament will be relieved to hear that I do not rely only on my own fading memories of the joys of exams. One of the most important parts of my job is to get out and visit schools around Scotland to hear what young people think. Today, in the public gallery, I am delighted to see some familiar faces from St Columba's High School, Gourock. Pupils from that school made me very welcome when I visited them recently. It is good to see them here today and I hope that they will be reassured to hear of the importance that all of us in the Scottish Parliament attach to getting the exams right.
The exam diet comprises many distinct tasks: registering candidates and their subjects; preparing exam papers; and marking assessments and exams. A successful exam diet is achieved by getting all those things right. This afternoon, I want to note the action that ministers have put in place for a successful exam diet. I will describe some of the detailed work that has been done and set out what has been achieved. I will also set out some areas where more work is needed and describe the action that is being taken in those areas. I will be happy to take questions at the end of the statement.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority is at the heart of the exam diet, but I want to acknowledge the essential contribution that other stakeholders—in particular, teachers and local authorities—must make. The SQA cannot deliver a successful diet without professional assistance and co-operation from others. Everyone who is involved in the exams system must realise that it is not only the SQA that has a duty to ensure that this year's exams and results are delivered successfully.
We need to consider the 2001 exams holistically. That requires organisations to look beyond their own boundaries and to see the bigger picture. I welcome the appointment of SQA account managers and SQA co-ordinators in schools. The people in those posts have already made a significant contribution to a co-ordinated understanding of the processes that are involved in the 2001 exams, of individual roles and responsibilities and of how individual tasks contribute to the overall diet. We need to build on that work. My task is to ensure that everyone knows what they have to do and that they are ready and able to contribute and work together effectively to deliver the exam diet.
We must all continue to work together to ensure that the diet is a success for Scotland's young people. The parliamentary parties have united to rebuild confidence and monitor progress. This is not the time for any organisation or group to chase headlines and pursue personal agendas. Such issues are petty compared to the needs of our young people. It is vital that everyone contributes positively. Scotland has long been proud of its education system, but last year's exams chaos knocked its self-belief. I urge everyone in Scottish education to put the interests of our young people first and to pull together to make Scotland's exam system again one that we can all be proud of.
In the aftermath of last year's difficulties, we commissioned Deloitte & Touche to carry out an independent review of the crisis. A new chief executive, Bill Morton, was brought in and we appointed John Ward as the new chair of the board.
Following the publication of Deloitte & Touche's report in November 2000, we took a further series of measures. We established a ministerial review group, chaired by Nicol Stephen, put in place more effective reporting arrangements between the SQA and the Executive and funded a 50 per cent increase in fees for markers and other appointees.
There is now regular communication between my department and the SQA. The ministerial review group meets monthly. I meet the chair and the chief executive of the SQA regularly and there are weekly meetings—at least—at official level. Through the ministerial review group, for example, the Executive has also worked with the wider education community to identify potential problems for the 2001 exam diet and to generate confidence in that diet among candidates, their families, teachers and other key stakeholders.
We have performed an independent appeals review of the diet 2000 results, which resulted in an important upgrade for over 300 students. However, in more than 90 per cent of cases, the independent teams have confirmed the results of the original appeals. While I know that that is disappointing for individual students, it should give us all confidence in the appeals system.
We have provided the SQA with £3 million to sort out last year's problems and we are investing to build the SQA's capacity to deliver high-calibre exams in 2001 and beyond. Part of that investment has gone to fund the 50 per cent increase in markers' fees. The SQA has also reorganised its staffing; it will, for example, put in place 50 trained people to staff its helpdesk this summer. We are investing in getting the systems right.
Ministers are taking action to establish a clear basis on which the SQA's performance in diet 2001 will be judged. We will agree with the SQA the performance measures for diet 2001. We expect the SQA to deliver in three core areas: the timeliness of results; the completeness and accuracy of results; and, where problems arise, prompt and efficient action to resolve them. Those measures will provide a clear statement to all stakeholders and, more important, to students and their parents on key performance issues. They will provide a yardstick for the SQA's achievements.
I have described what has been done to put in place the framework for diet 2001. I now want to address the components of the diet.
We have commissioned Deloitte & Touche to provide assistance to the SQA on detailed project planning for diet 2001. The SQA's internal auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, will validate and report on progress against those plans. While there is, rightly, a good deal of external interest in the SQA's progress, we should not lose sight of the role and responsibilities of the SQA's board. The board has put in place arrangements to enable it to monitor progress at a detailed level. I welcome that.
The SQA does not operate in isolation; it must share information about key dates with its partners in education and about its progress with those partners and other stakeholders. That is a positive step, which will ensure that all players understand how diet 2001 will be achieved and will provide assurance about progress towards the summer's exams.
Another welcome step that the SQA has taken is to second a deputy head teacher from Glasgow to its senior management team. That will provide the SQA with first-hand experience of the diet from a school's perspective. The individual will continue to spend two and a half days a week in school. The secondment will give an insight into the issues that matter to schools and how they can be addressed proactively. I know that the SQA aims to match that with a similar secondment from the further education sector.
On 14 March, I reported to Parliament on the SQA's progress. As I noted then, progress has been good on the range of issues that contribute to diet 2001. For example, all schools have submitted registration data; 98 per cent of exam papers have been sent to the printers—that is a solid achievement and contrasts well with last year, when less than 80 per cent of exam papers had been sent to the printers at this stage; and centres that have not acquired approval for subjects have been identified and are working with the SQA to reach a resolution. There is now a much clearer picture of what must be done and the SQA has gone a long way to resolving the critical issues. However, there is no room for complacency. A considerable amount of critical work remains to be completed to ensure the successful delivery of the diet.
This year, the SQA has built in checking procedures, so that any data errors can be identified and corrected early in the process. That is a welcome development. It is also important that everyone, including the young people who face exams this summer, is assured that errors that are identified now will be addressed well before certification.
One important process that is happening now is the entering of details of candidates' subjects into the results database. This year, unlike last year, the SQA is sending back to schools reports that identify errors in the database. There will be a final sign-off of the data in April. Those positive steps are a significant development on last year's procedures. Again though, we are not complacent. For example, I know that the existence of errors in the checking reports has caused some concern to schools. In response, I have asked the SQA to provide clearer information and advice to schools to explain and resolve any errors. The SQA has told me that most of the errors pose no difficulties for the examinations process and that the remainder can be dealt with in good time. I have asked the SQA to give that message equally clearly to its school partners.
The ministerial review group, which we established to act as an early warning system and to monitor progress, has highlighted a particular concern with regard to the recruitment of markers. The SQA has estimated that it will require 8,000 markers. A 10 per cent contingency means that its recruitment target is up to 8,800. By yesterday, the SQA had confirmed 6,632 appointments and had issued a further 1,637 invitations. For the remainder, the SQA is actively reviewing its pool of reserves and recent applications. Those outstanding appointments are not spread evenly across the range of subjects and the SQA has identified subjects for targeted action. They include French, English in particular, and business-related subjects. That is a challenge, but we should all remember that, last year, the SQA was still recruiting markers in June.
The SQA has asked local authorities to help with the recruitment of markers. I especially welcome the constructive response by the Educational Institute of Scotland and, this week, by the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association in publicising the need for markers among their members. That is a good example of the co-operative working that is required to achieve a successful exam diet. The review group will continue to monitor progress and, if necessary, will identify further action to be taken on markers. The group includes representatives from a wide range of education interests, so it is well placed to analyse issues such as marker recruitment and to help to produce results.
We have listened to concerns about the certificate and the ministerial review group has considered how it might be redesigned. I want to thank, in particular, the student members of that group for their insights and contributions to the work. The proposed changes—a new summary certificate for courses achieved during the exam diet, which will be right at the front of the package, and the placing of the core skills profile in a supplementary information section at the back of the certificate—will make the certificate easier to use.
We have been pressing the SQA to introduce those changes for this summer. The SQA has agreed to the changes in principle and is checking that the new certificate can be delivered without compromising the exam diet 2001. It will announce details of this summer's certificate very shortly. This summer, the SQA will provide new guidance to candidates that will clearly explain the layout of the certificate, no matter what the final design may be.
The ministerial review group is also looking further ahead to the critical days leading up to the delivery of certificates to candidates. We have asked the group to consider that period in detail, taking account of the requirements of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, schools, colleges and pupils.
I have described the role that the ministerial review group is playing in monitoring progress and identifying concerns about diet 2001. Last week, we launched an exam 2001 hotline, which will allow teachers, parents and pupils to flag up concerns and will act as an extension of the early warning function of the ministerial review group. I will take a very close interest in the issues that emerge from that hotline.
Today I have set out the progress that has been made towards the exam 2001 diet. I have described the framework that the Executive has put in place; the progress that has been made on components of the diet; the areas that have given rise to concern; and the action that is being taken to resolve those issues.
There are four months to go before the exam results land on doormats and little more than four weeks before the exams get under way. A lot of work on diet 2001 lies ahead. Although the SQA has a central role, its partners throughout Scottish education also have a critical contribution to make. We need to work together on the real objectives to give young people the exam system that they deserve and to build their confidence at this crucial time in their lives to allow them to concentrate on preparing for their exams.
Since last autumn, the education and political community in Scotland has rallied to put those young people first. The process is not pain free or straightforward, but it is making a difference. We can be confident that preparations are well ahead for this year, but we cannot be complacent. By checking, monitoring, reporting—and, indeed, by correcting errors—week after week, we can succeed in that challenge together.
I appeal for members' co-operation. Even without taking into account the time that we have lost this afternoon, we are very pushed for time. I must leave sufficient time for the second statement, so I cannot allow an extension. Many members want to speak, so brevity will be the order of the day in both questions and answers.
I welcome today's statement and confirm my party's support for the actions that are being taken to ensure that this year's diet produces results according to the criteria that the minister has listed. It is useful that the statement listed three clear criteria by which we may judge the success of the diet.
I am slightly disappointed by the statement, which contained little that is new. All the announcements have been made before in one form or another. When Bill Morton gave evidence to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee a month ago, he was closely questioned by all members of the committee, from all parties.
I want to ask the minister a specific question about the diet, but there are also one or two details that he must consider. One of those is the commitment that was given by Bill Morton and John Ward, when I met them two weeks ago, to communicate directly with students, by means of either a targeted letter or a newsletter. That was not mentioned in the statement, but it is essential.
The second detail concerns the review of the appeals process, which was promised for the coming year. There is vast dissatisfaction with what happened last year and a feeling that the process may not have been compliant with the European convention on human rights. We need to know how that review is moving ahead. We also need to know how the review of higher still is progressing. It is no great surprise that there has been difficulty in recruiting markers for English, when there has been such resistance to higher still and its concepts within the English teaching sector.
The minister said, rightly, that the exam diet will start in a month's time. Over the coming month, many young people in Scotland will be revising and working hard with some trepidation. A simple question needs to be answered. Before Christmas, it would have been foolish to give assurances that everything would be fine. It might even have been foolish to do that a month ago, but the young people of Scotland and their parents and families want to know that what went wrong last year has been clearly identified and will not go wrong this year. What is needed is not a bland reassurance about the diet, but an acknowledgement that the things that went wrong last time—many of which were identified by the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's report—will not go wrong this time. With the support of the SNP, will the minister find a way for himself or the SQA to directly reassure the young people who are worried?
I am happy to give the same reassurance that I give week in and week out when I visit schools throughout Scotland and discuss such matters with teachers and pupils. I have been guaranteeing for months that we will do nothing in the period running up to this summer's exams that will work against the successful delivery of the exams. That is why some of the decisions that we have all pressed for—for example in relation to certificate design and the recirculation of scripts—have had to be delayed or considered very carefully. We guarantee that everything that can possibly be done will be done to deliver the exam diet and the results accurately and on time this summer.
We cannot account for human error. We have had problems in the past month with individual coding entries in individual schools. There have been more than 400 errors and we have to chase up every one of them, as well as ensure that at the centre, the work that is done by the education department, the SQA and other national bodies is done properly.
I reassure the Parliament and every pupil in Scotland that we will do absolutely everything to correct all the errors and have the systems and performance measurements in place, which will make it clear that we expect the results to be accurate and on time. If there are any problems between now and the diet or afterwards, they will be acted on timeously and effectively, because that was part of the difficulty last year.
There will be communication with individual students. The SQA confirmed that at my meeting with the chairman and the chief executive last week. Rightly, we have delayed detailed consideration of the appeals system for 2001 until we are finished with the appeals system for 2000, and until I am satisfied that we have the arrangements in place for the exams this summer, never mind the appeals afterwards. However, we will look at the appeals system in the weeks ahead.
The review of the new qualifications is taking place and stakeholders are involved in it. We have promised all along that we will produce an interim report in June, before the end of the academic year. I confirm that that will happen.
I, too, welcome the opportunity to respond to the minister's statement, even though there was not much in it that was new. The focus must be on a successful diet for 2001; that must be the first priority. To that end, I ask the First Minister—
Not yet.
I will ask the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs three questions, the first of which the First Minister will be interested in. What will be the performance measures and benchmarks by which the SQA will be judged? The minister touched on that in his statement, but there was no detail—will that detail be made public?
From my quick arithmetic, there is a 20 per cent shortage of markers. Is the minister confident that that shortage can be made up, particularly in the specialist areas that he listed?
I, too, have visited schools. Just last night, I met some pupils who were thoroughly disenchanted with higher still as an exam process. One pupil had received exam papers that were necessary for completing a higher still history exam only six weeks before taking the exam. There was widespread disenchantment, particularly among those students who were in fifth year last year. In sixth year, they feel that they have seen many mistakes repeated when they have taken higher still again. Will the minister give an assurance that the philosophy of higher still will be reviewed once a successful 2001 diet is completed?
I do not want to revisit the philosophy of the new national qualifications. We must consider the new national qualifications as a total package; they are not represented only by the higher still exams. As my visits around the country have confirmed, the new qualifications are benefiting people in the 16 to 18 age group with different abilities and levels of achievement. A range of qualifications is available and systems in schools and colleges are integrated. That is all of direct benefit to that generation of teenagers. However, course content, preparation, organisation and assessment of some courses raise questions. That is why we are conducting a review. I am determined that the review should deal with those issues effectively.
I think that the member would agree that it made some sense to wait until now before agreeing the exact performance measurements that might be expected by August, given the number of deadlines that came to a head in March. We intend to agree the performance measurements with the SQA's board, because it must have some ownership of them. When we have agreed the measurements, we will publicise them.
I put my usual caveat on this, but I am very confident that we will have the right number of markers if the educational community pulls behind us and makes a national effort to ensure that people offer themselves as markers. In my statement, I welcomed the support of the two main teaching unions on that. The EIS has been enthusiastic in its efforts to encourage its members to volunteer. The SSTA was initially reluctant, but following discussions with me on Monday, it confirmed that it too would encourage its members to volunteer. That development is welcome. It is good to have the teaching profession's support.
I thank the minister for his statement. He has done a great deal of work, as has the SQA. The minister is right to put the interests of children at the heart of his thoughts and statements.
Like Michael Russell, I am anxious that we should give pupils, teachers and parents assurance that the system will work well this year. Does the minister agree that, after all last year's heartache, parliamentary inquiries, ministerial working groups, genuine hard work of the SQA and others, extra work in schools, extra spending and extra scrutiny, it is disappointing that Bill Morton cannot yet guarantee that this year's diet will have no serious hitches? That reinforces the point that higher still and the assessment system are massively over-complicated and need to be reviewed. We cannot have such doubt year after year because of data overload and different kinds of data.
Perfection can never be promised, but I hope that the minister will assure us that mistakes on last year's scale will not occur, that the SQA will be able to identify mistakes more quickly and that the SQA will be better equipped to remedy mistakes. Surely we can say that if mistakes happen, at least they will be fewer and fixed quickly, and that appeals will be processed more quickly. The drawn-out and damaging chaos of last year cannot and will not be repeated. If mistakes occur, we must act more quickly.
I will make a couple of technical points. I understand that the last unit results from schools are due in on 30 May. I think that the minister mentioned April for registration. The idea is that the SQA will turn round the results in a fortnight and return them to schools for a confirmation response. Is the minister confident that that can be done in time? Schools are not sitting doing nothing, waiting for the results, and the SQA is not doing nothing either. Action must be taken urgently to complete that operation as quickly as required. Has the SQA built into its timetable the fact that the sheer bulk of the certificates must mean that the physical printing takes a heck of a long time? I wish to make those points because it is urgent that the practical things do not get in the way of what is a good theory.
I am confident that the SQA will give enough time for printing. I am also confident that we will hit those other deadlines. Obviously, we need to continue to discuss with the SQA what resources are required to achieve those deadlines and what assistance it requires from others. That is why we produced detailed reports for members to show our progress against those individual deadlines and targets.
On the overall picture, I recognise that Bill Morton showed understandable caution when he gave evidence to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, and that he has reservations that, in the four months that are still to go, all kinds of things could go wrong that members might not even anticipate. However, we are clear—indeed, all parties in the Parliament have been clear—that what happened last August must not and cannot happen again. Young people's lives are far too important for that. That is the effort that we are involved in and everything that we are doing is designed to achieve that.
I agree with Ian Jenkins that we must at all stages—before and after the exam results—identify individual errors or difficulties. The systems must correct those and correct them quickly. Part of the problem with last year's exam diet was that, at times, it took a ridiculous length of time to resolve what were some fairly simple errors, which occurred at different stages in the process.
I thank the minister for his statement. It is important that he keeps the Education, Culture and Sport Committee informed of developments, because the committee is keen to be involved in the partnership in education and to bring the matter to a successful conclusion. We will take evidence from the SQA in May and June of this year and we shall visit the SQA staff in Dalkeith and Glasgow.
I will ask two questions. First, it seems that schools are still being sent the wrong data. In particular, schools are receiving the wrong data about which students are on which courses. We need to continue looking at that and to ensure that the data that are sent to schools are correct.
Unfortunately, there are students in the FE sector who still have not received their certificates from last year. Clearly, that is unacceptable. If that had happened in the schools sector, there would have been uproar. Students in the FE sector are people who have returned to education—often after a negative experience—and it is important that their experience of education is now positive. Can the minister ensure that steps will be taken in the SQA to ensure that, this year, FE students are not disadvantaged in a way that precludes their further study and, perhaps, future employment possibilities?
Karen Gillon made two extremely important points. I agree that the situation with FE students is unacceptable. It is correct that the exam diet for last year's school pupils was completed first, but I am keen that the SQA complete the certificates for FE students and do so by the target date, which I believe is now mid-May. That has taken a ridiculous amount of time, although I know that special arrangements have been put in place by FE colleges to liaise with prospective employers and others who want information about passes and success rates.
Karen Gillon made a point about schools being sent the wrong data. That is one of the difficulties that we face. I will be honest in my answer. The situation with individual entries is complicated by the fact that there are so many people in so many schools throughout Scotland who are using so many codes for so many exams with so many names. One of the difficulties that we have faced—this has been the case in a number of schools that have contacted me directly—is that the individual coding entries have been incorrect at the school end. The information that eventually comes back from the SQA has therefore been incorrect.
That shows the partnership approach that is needed. Everybody has to get their information right. Everybody has to check their data. Everybody has to correct their errors promptly. If that happens in the schools and the SQA, we can make significant progress over April.
It is widely accepted that last year's difficulties were, to some extent, attributable to data processing software, yet the computer system this year is largely the same as it was last year, even though there will be an increase in the data that need to be processed in 2001. There was no mention of those elements in the update statement. Is that because the SQA and the Executive are fully confident in the computer system? I ask that in the light of this week's events, where one of the SQA's information technology workers lost his job.
The person who lost his job this week was not an IT worker for the SQA; he was an independent consultant who had been employed by the SQA.
On the computers, I understand that the problem last year was not with the software, although there was perhaps a problem of compatibility throughout Scotland, but a significant problem with data entry. We all know if that we put wrong information into a computer we get significantly wrong information out the other end. We are involved in reviewing all the computing systems that will be in use this summer. I intend to include a report on that in my next written report to the Parliament.
The minister intimated that a head teacher would be included on the board. To follow on from what Irene McGugan said, and based on what I have learned from talking to staff in school offices, would it not be sensible to include a member from a school office? They, above everybody, know about the problems last year with feeding in the information.
I spoke to the minister before we came in about some public impressions of how the appeals system worked last year. Will he confirm that the first appeals were marked by teachers or markers who were not involved in the first round and that the subsequent round of appeals were marked by a new group that was not involved in marking the papers in the first round? Will the minister also confirm that at no point did he say that none of the extra markers who were drafted in for the third round of appeals was previously involved in marking the exams? It sounds like a complicated question, but it is the reason for some of the public concern over the matter.
We would not expect people who had marked a paper last July to mark it again in the autumn or winter appeals. What is important is that the people who are involved in the appeals are experienced markers and adjudicators. They would have been involved last year, but they would have been considering different scripts to those that they would be asked to consider in the appeals.
On the secondment, one of the reasons that we have gone for an assistant head teacher secondment is that they have a management role throughout the school. Schools deal with the administration of examination details in different ways. Some use teachers, some use school office staff and some use a combination of both. We want to get a whole school picture. The person that the SQA has seconded into the organisation will be in his school for half the week and in the SQA for the other half. That is an essential combination that will bring a lot of experience to bear on the monitoring of the processes over the course of the next three months.
Can I ask a brief supplementary?
We are in danger of squashing a lot of people out, because the questions and answers have, inevitably, been long. I am afraid that I will be unable to call everybody.
In addition to the pressing issues with the 2001 exam diet, which have to take priority, one of the main concerns of the EIS is the review of the internal assessment of the higher still programme. That will become increasingly urgent as we pass the 2001 diet. What progress has been made with the unions and other organisations?
There have been two or three significant surveys of teacher opinion and the way in which the internal assessment has worked. That information and other information from key stakeholders has been fed into the review group on the national qualifications. That review group intends to produce an interim report by June, which will address some of the issues relating to internal assessment. I am keen that the most urgent issues are addressed before the next academic year.
I welcome much of what the minister has said, but I would like to ask him a couple of important questions. Going back to what the report of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee said about the importance of performance measurements, the minister said that he would be negotiating the performance targets on time and accuracy with the board of the SQA. When does he hope to announce those performance targets? It is only fair to parents, teachers, pupils and students that everybody knows what those targets are before the exams start, rather than halfway through the summer. When will he announce those targets for turnaround times and for accuracy?
Although our concentration is on the short-term issue of this year's diet, will the minister give a commitment to review the longer-term issues about the governance of the SQA and other related matters immediately after the 2001 diet is completed?
I can certainly give the second assurance that Alex Neil seeks. Indeed, the work on the review is already under way and my department has been reorganised to ensure that additional staff are available to cope with that important review and ensure that it reaches a successful conclusion.
In answer to his first point, I intend to publish the performance measurements that we have agreed with the SQA shortly after the Easter recess. It is important that we do that. At the moment, however, the important thing about setting performance measurements for the SQA is that they relate specifically to matters that lie within the control of the SQA and that they are measured on performance that the SQA has some control over, and that will be the case.
Last year, classroom teachers had to come out of the classroom before the end of term to act as markers. Is that a contingency that Mr McConnell is considering for this year and, if so, who will pick up the tab for the replacement teachers in the classroom?
We are obviously trying to avoid that, so the answer at the moment is not yet.
I hope that the minister will give feedback to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. I am particularly interested in registration. Teachers whom I speak to are concerned that, because registration will take place in spring, there will be a flood in the system and we could find ourselves in a similar situation to the one that we found ourselves in last year.
If we hit all the target dates, the information is processed and, if it is wrong, it is corrected. Everyone works together on that. I believe that all the data can be accurately processed on time, and I am confident about that. The whole educational community must put all its efforts into ensuring that we get as many things right first time as possible and that, where things are wrong, they are corrected quickly.
Many people involved in the system have argued that some aspects of the exam structure are so complex and bureaucratic that they put a totally unacceptable pressure on the SQA and on schools to cope with that bureaucracy. At what point will the minister review that and try to get things right in future?
I have great and growing confidence in Nicol Stephen. I am very anxious that he will not be a whipping boy if something goes wrong, as he is in charge of the committee. Can I have an assurance on that as well?
Well, I do not know about that. I think that Nicol Stephen is doing a fine job and I have every confidence in his ministerial review group and its ability to deliver the 2001 exam diet.
I have absolutely no doubt as to where responsibility for this year's examination diet lies, but I also have no doubt that each and every one of us, in this Parliament and throughout Scotland's educational community, is responsible for participating in ensuring that it is a success. I am happy to take the day-to-day responsibility for achieving that, but I am also keen that we work as a team in the widest possible sense of the word. That is why we consistently try to work in that way.
Measures could have been in place this year that would have reduced some of the bureaucratic burden on schools. It was difficult to implement them without significant risk to the computer processes that Irene McGugan mentioned earlier. I hope to return to that issue, and several other issues, next year and beyond, to ensure that we reduce the burden on schools. It is not only about the burden of the administration of these examinations on the SQA, but about the burden on schools.
I welcome the minister's statement and his commitment to resolving the problems of last year. I know that the minister is aware of the difficulties faced by a student of higher religious studies from my area. Within the past week she received an F grade, following an independent review of a C grade. Can the minister undertake to review the root cause of what is, presumably, an error and put in place appropriate procedures to ensure that such an error does not happen in the next diet?
If I have the right case in mind, that was a clerical error in our department, the blame for which will no doubt appear at the SQA's door on the front page of some newspaper. The student got a C grade and it should have been recorded as that, but on one piece of paper it was recorded as an F. That is extremely unfortunate. I believe that she received an apology and a correction this week. If it is the student that I have in mind, I think that I met her on a visit to Kilwinning Academy. I wish her all the best for her exams this year and hope that the administration of them goes significantly better for her than it did last year.
If the Executive believes in freedom of information and in the principle that justice should be done and be seen to be done, will the minister ask the SQA to return marked examination scripts to schools in cases where both the school and the candidate are dissatisfied with the outcome of the appeal? Does the minister agree that to charge £20 per script for such a service would be excessive and discriminatory?
As Dennis Canavan knows, the SQA are consulting on that. I am keen that we should have in place the opportunity for scripts to be returned. It must be done at the right time and in the right way. It would have been wrong last year to compromise the mopping-up exercise that was desperately needed in relation to the mistakes made in last year's exam diet. I am keen not to compromise this year's exam diet, but the SQA is consulting on introducing this for the new winter diet in 2001-02.
I am keen that we do not put burdens in the way of individual students, parents or schools who may want to take up that option, if it is agreed at the end of the consultation that it should exist. I hope that if the consultation shows that there is concern about that fee, the proposal will be reconsidered.