Why is the SQA so quiet about students cheating with AI?

“We have no further comment to make.”

It’s a statement that every journalist has received plenty of times.

Over the years investigating and reporting on Scottish education, both during and well before my time at The Herald, I’ve had variations of that statement from all sorts of bodies including councils, regulators, private companies, public organisations, and the Scottish Government.

The message between the lines is simple: we’re not answering these questions unless you find a way to make us.

Sometimes this is what you get in response to follow up questions after receiving an initial response to an enquiry; other times it comes when you try to challenge them for ignoring some or all of an initial query.

The latest instance – at least at the time of writing – involves the soon-to-be rebranded SQA, Scotland’s only exam board and the body responsible for issuing exam results to students in a couple of weeks. The topic? Students using AI to cheat in their coursework.

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Here’s the background: a teacher and current SQA marker recently approached us with some pretty serious concerns, alleging that they and others had been discouraged from reporting all instances of suspected AI use by students, and suggesting that the issue was effectively being covered up. If true, this would undermine the fairness of this year’s National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher results, and raise major questions for SQA leadership.

So we approached SQA. We put the accusations to them to give them the opportunity to respond, and also asked for some specific and obviously relevant information:

• In total, how many scripts were flagged for potential use of AI by markers? (and what is this as a proportion of total scripts)
• How many of those were investigated and judged to show signs of AI use?
• What action was taken against those who were found to have cheated using AI?

We also asked if the [[SQA]] would commit to an investigation of the claims being made, particularly given previous concerns about the [[SQA]]’s exam marking – remember the months-long Higher History debacle last year, for example?

Here’s the response we received, attributed to an SQA spokesperson: “We provide principal assessors with guidance on the use of AI before marker meetings to help them prepare. Markers are told to raise all potential malpractice concerns during marking, including the use of AI, all of which are investigated.”

So the exam board is disputing the accusation that markers were told not to report all concerns, but what about that other information?

Well, when we asked if they would be responding to our other questions, we were told that they had “no further comment to make”.

So now we have to try to make this publicly-funded body answer these simple questions.

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One option would be to ask more specific questions, and give more information from markers, but this would risk revealing details of our sources. But teachers tend to be worried about being identified by the SQA and facing punitive actions for raising concerns, and to be honest that’s a pretty reasonable concern on their part, so that’s not a road we would go down.

Which means that we need to use Freedom of Information requests. This – as the [[SQA]] knows – means it will be weeks before we might get the information we’re asking for, and that’s assuming they manage to answer on time (which isn’t even remotely guaranteed) and don’t try to withhold material using some of the clauses in FOI law.

Crucially, the information is very unlikely to have been made available when exam results are released at the start of August.

All of which is ironic, because just a couple of weeks ago the SQA was telling the press that the appointment of their new Chief Executive, Nick Page, “marks the start of a new era of collaboration, transparency, and opportunity”.

We have now submitted several FOI requests to the SQA, asking for the information they have so far refused to provide, as well as other material related to potential cheating through AI use. We will, as ever, let you know what we find, but it might be a while.

We’ve also asked Mr Page to sit down for an interview with us, which would give him the chance to explain how he is going to deliver on promises of transparency and openness from an organisation that has historically pursued the opposite approach. We hope to bring you that soon as well.