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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 1 May 2025
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Displaying 1489 contributions

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Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 29 September 2021

Michael Marra

It increased compared with the previous year. We have discussed putting the evidence of previous attainment into the model, as was done in local authorities and as Mr Mundell has just pointed out. The suppression of those grades is surely the consequence of the changes that you made, as the leader of the organisation over that year, to put in place that model.

10:30  

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 29 September 2021

Michael Marra

That is fair, Ms Robertson. Are you saying that the data applied had no role in creating the gap?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 29 September 2021

Michael Marra

It is really important, and I welcome the fact that you have put that on record. I know, having spoken to the trade unions in the SQA, that there was real concern about the way that that happened. I am interested in the relationship between leadership and expertise. With regard to the model for 2020, did staff make representations to you that it would be the “disaster”—in their words—that it turned out to be?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 29 September 2021

Michael Marra

In recent weeks, the level of absences in schools has been equivalent to the level when we cancelled exams last year. Do you have reflections about lost learning and where we might be at the moment? I do not mean to be alarmist, but do you agree that it is appropriate that we consider that in the decision-making process?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

I am sure that the universities would talk about the cap on student numbers that the Scottish Government put in place. Seamus Searson and Tara Lillis, do you have comments on these issues?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

But there is a cohort of kids now and from the previous year who feel that the system has not served them well and that those exceptional circumstances have not been taken into account.

10:30  

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

I want to look slightly beyond the qualifications process and immediate assessments to the learning. I was struck by Seamus Searson’s comment about pupils being driven into the ground by assessments and the convener’s remarks about compression being the theme. We understand that there was, in essence, less teaching across the year for a variety of reasons, particularly for some cohorts. There was less time in school, so learning was difficult to access. We have taken evidence from young people in the past couple of weeks, and it is clear that many of them feel that they have not learned as much as others have learned. What challenges will that present as young people progress to the next stages of their qualifications or, indeed, their lives?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

I declare an interest as a serving councillor on Dundee City Council, which is Audrey May’s employer. Also, Audrey May is a former teacher of mine. That is the more interesting point. She was a very young teacher.

We are going to talk quite a bit about qualifications, grades and outcomes, first and foremost. The other side of the outcome that I am interested in is knowledge and what young people learned.

I think that Tony McDaid made a point about missing the workhorse term and an awful lot of people missing an awful lot of time in school. As we look forward, what concerns do you have about what those young people might not know because of what they have missed, and what they have learned?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

That makes sense to me. However, it worries me a little when I hear from young people who are going from highers to advanced highers, for instance, and when I speak to university principals and lecturers about people coming out of school with perhaps a lack of knowledge compared to what they might have had otherwise. The question whether we, as a country, are adapting to address that worries me a little.

I do not want to burrow too deeply into that, because I have another question.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Alternative Certification Model

Meeting date: 22 September 2021

Michael Marra

Data that were released yesterday show the scale of the attainment gap produced by the ACM—or the alternative certification model; I am trying to avoid acronyms as best as I can. They show that around 75 per cent of private school pupils got A grades compared with fewer than half in the state sector. Do you think that the system benefited the most affluent at the expense of the poorest?