Scotland’s education secretary has revealed that traditional exams could return after two years of disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Shirley-Anne Somerville is set to make an announcement later this week about the exams schedule for the upcoming academic year.
Speaking on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland the SNP minister said that there could be big changes coming to the Scottish education system in the future.
The decisions come following an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which found earlier this year that the system in Scotland had no long-term visions.
READ MORE: SQA accused of presiding over 'massive' grade inflation
Before then Ms Somerville said she would announce what would be happening with assessments during this academic year.
Speaking on the programme, she said: "I'll be making announcement within the next few days about what will be happening with assessments for next year.
"One of the considerations that I've been looking at over the summer, for the example, is can we make changes to the self-isolation to ensure that schooling might not be as disrupted as it has been in the past.
"If we can do that, which we have, what does that mean that we'll be able to turn a little bit more of a normality.
"I'm still looking at the final advice that's coming up on that and I'll be making announcements soon.
"I will want to be able to do that before the rest of the schools go back next week.”
When asked about the changes, Ms Somerville added: "I think we do need to look at change within our system, it may not be the same in the future but that will take us some time as we work, understandably, with parents with carers, and with students and teachers to be able to develop that.
"I'll make a decision on what will happen in the next academic year, very very soon, and we'll make sure that teachers, and importantly pupils know what they'll be doing next year within the next few days."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel