Chamber and committees

Good morning, and thanks for joining us.

I will return to a question that I asked the commissioner earlier, on the unintended consequences of some of the changes around current widening access targets, specifically in relation to admissions behaviours. From your experience of your institutions, how has that changed and what has your learning been in relation to the success or failure of students carrying on to complete their course?

I will bring in Lydia Rohmer to respond from a college perspective.

Good morning, Professor McKendrick, and thanks for joining us today.

I want to carry on the line of questioning that George Adam and Keith Brown have pursued, because I am interested in hearing, from your experience and from what you have had the chance to look at, what unintended consequences and admissions behaviours the targets have delivered.

You outlined well how, in some cases, we have set universities up to fail because they have not been able to achieve the targets. However, are we creating a situation in which, because we have the targets, we are also setting young people up to fail? We can tick a box to say that we got them into university for year 1, but we are not sustaining them all to graduation.

I have seen some of the great work that is going on with care-experienced young people in Edinburgh. That is a great model, but we are talking about a different model for the wider student population. What is your view on that—specifically, on the point that the approach has driven admissions behaviours to change, but not necessarily to deliver the outcomes for which we hope?

I mentioned retention rates earlier. The SFC’s report on widening access shows a decrease among all students, but that has happened more quickly in SIMD 20 and, more worryingly, among care-experienced young people, despite the good work that has gone on to sustain them in relation to not just learning, but the wraparound care at college and university. What work is being done to take that forward?

From speaking to students, I know that they want to learn and earn, but the timetables sometimes do not work for them in that way. They need to earn money, so they are not going into college courses. What work is going on in the sector to consider taking a holistic approach, such as by bringing course time together so that someone does not need to study all week long and there is more flexibility for them?

Thank you.

Have you looked specifically at the fall in retention rates for care-experienced young people, given that some bespoke packages are made available? I visited Edinburgh university recently and looked at the student accommodation for the year-round offer that can be provided if young people want it. Why are we seeing that fall? All of us around the table are looking to the Government’s forthcoming Promise bill, and we are now at the mid-point, so the fact that we are going backwards is really concerning. What has been problematic and can we take any learning from it?

I know that I am putting you on the spot by asking about different institutions but, following Professor Peter Mathieson’s message to staff at the University of Edinburgh, which basically said that radical action will be needed to find £140 million of savings, I have received a number of communications from constituents who work there. Unions have described that as suggesting that there will be devastating cuts and a lot of people who work in the institution are worried about their jobs and futures.

I know that you cannot comment on individual universities, but is that now a sector-wide issue? We have already discussed the University of Dundee. What is your understanding of university finances across Scotland? We now seem to be seeing a drip, drip, drip effect across institutions, which is deeply worrying for staff and raises questions about the future sustainability of such an important sector of our economy.

We heard that teachers talked to one another and did not understand why pupils had underperformed. The cabinet secretary said that overpresentation was a key theme in the report and that students were potentially sitting exams at a level that they were not ready for, which impacted on performance. Is it your understanding that there is overpresentation that sets young people up to fail?

I have a couple of questions about literacy standards. It has been suggested that one key reason for the fall in performance in higher history is candidates’ literacy standards. However, we have not seen similar falls in marks in other literacy-based subjects. What work has the SQA undertaken to analyse whether candidates who took higher history also performed worse in other subjects? What plans are being put in place to publish that?

Thank you for that.

I return to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s question. Has there been a failure in exam timetabling this year?

I asked that question because I met a constituent on Monday whose daughter is sitting psychology, and there was initially an exam clash with English. To be honest, I do not understand why any other exam was scheduled to be on the same day as higher English, given that no fewer than 34,000 pupils have sat it in any of the past five years. The SQA has now said that, in the interest of wellbeing, the psychology exam will be moved forward by two weeks. You used the analogy of someone who is planning to sit their driving test. It is concerning for young people who are planning when they will sit their exams to be told that they will now sit one of them two weeks earlier than they expected. That increases the pressure on them.

I know that timetabling is not a perfect science, but I do not understand why the contingency date of 2 June was not used for the psychology exam, given the lower numbers of candidates that were presenting. That is why I asked the question. Although you have said that you listened to other partners, it seems that parents and young people have not been part of that conversation. What seems to be a very straightforward solution, which I have just put to you, has not been taken forward and that is now putting more pressure on young people and teachers.