SHIRLEY-ANNE Somerville has refused to say she is confident the government will substantially cut the education attainment gap by 2026 between pupils from wealthier and poorer households.

The Education Secretary was pressed on the pledge today ahead of the release of pupil results in National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications tomorrow following the first full diet of national exams since the start of the pandemic.

Ms Somerville refused to give a guarantee that the ambition announced in 2016 would be met within the ten year timetable promised - though she stressed she was determined to address it.

She underlined £250m of additional funding from the government under the Scottish Attainment Challenge to address the additional problems in delivering the policy that have been caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Experts believe the pandemic is likely to perpetuate the gap which sees pupils from richer homes gain higher qualifications than those from poorer families.

Ms Somerville was visiting the government agency Skills Development Scotland, in Glasgow, today where staff are preparing to take calls from some pupils, parents and teachers seeking advice and support on their results as well as on further study, jobs and apprenticeships.

Asked by The Herald if she was confident the goal to substantially close the poverty related attainment gap would be reached in four years given the disruption caused by Covid-19, she said: "We know young people have been impacted by Covid but that is exactly why we have stood as a government to increase the amount of expenditure that we are putting in [to close the attainment gap] - £750 million to a billion pound - that is exactly why [there has been additional expenditure to have more teachers in our classrooms...so the money is going in to ensure that that is being done and that is what we are determined to do. Nothing has changed."

Pressed on whether she was confident of meeting the goal, she added: "We are absolutely determined to do everything we can as a government to ensure that happens. The determination is absolutely there for us to be able to."

Nicola Sturgeon’s 2016 Programme for Government stated “it is the defining mission of this government to close the poverty-related attainment gap”.

It said: “We intend to make significant progress within the lifetime of this parliament (2016-2021) and substantially eliminate the gap over the course of the next decade. That is a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success.”

In May, Ms Somerville told MSPs on the education committee that an "arbitrary date" could no longer be attached to when the policy  would be delivered.

However, the First Minister later told Holyrood that she stood by the policy and its timetable.

Ms Sturgeon told MSPs: “Let me quote from the manifesto commitment at the 2016 election. ‘That the Scottish Government would support the substantial closure of the attainment gap by 2026’. I stand by that. That remains the policy and the objective of the Government.”

Last month a survey of head teachers found 87 per cent believe progress has been made in closing the gap in achievement between rich and poor students. But 95 per cent of head teachers said the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting school closures had at least some impact on progress towards closing the gap - with 54 per cent saying there had been a "significant impact".

In 2021 the attainment gap between the least and most deprived pupils dropped to just eight percentage points compared to 17 in 2019.

Tomorrow's results are the first full set of exams to have taken place since before the start of the pandemic after results in 2020 and 2021 were based on teacher judgement, supported by assessment resources.

But despite the return of the exams this year, many schools were hit by high levels of pupil and teacher absences due to high levels of Covid in the community and the seeding of the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Ms Somerville insisted pupils had been treated fairly following the return of exams this year, though she said in line with previous statements from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) 2022 was not a return to "normal" with the results expected to reflect an "intermediary position" between pre pandemic and pandemic times.

"It is not the return of normality. It's been very important that the SQA have worked with partners to ensure that every year's results are fair and credible, and that's exactly what they've done as you would expect this year as well," she said.

Ms Somerville has seen the exam results which are to be released tomorrow but under the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice she cannot discuss them until they have been put into the public domain.

She was therefore unable to say whether the attainment gap would widen, or narrow further in the results due out tomorrow as they did last year.

Asked about whether results would be similar to 2019, she again declined to comment on the results but added: "The SQA have said for a number of months now alongside the bodies for the rest of the UK is that we expect an intermediary position this year.

"So we have a return of exams but it isn't a return to normal and the SQA, as well as doing the usual processes that they would do in terms of checking how an exam has performed (whether is it the right level of difficulty) are also looking at whether there has been a level of disruption that may have impacted on how that exam performed.

"So this is different again to even when we had a normal and usual exam results. The SQA has laid that position out and that's what we would expect to see tomorrow."

At the start of the school year the SQA made modifications to qualifications to take account of pandemic disruption and £4m was awarded by the Scottish Government to support pupils at Easter ahead of sitting exams.

Last year saw a 20 per cent rise in the number of pupils achieving the top A grade in Highers and Advanced Highers leading to some critics suggest grades had been inflated.

She could not reveal whether this trend would be repeated this year, but added: "The results last year, as has been shown by the experience of employers and universities who determined that these were also credible results that came out, and again we are seeing statements from employers and universities who are seeing this year's exam results to be fair and credible."

Ms Somerville said: "It has been a very different year but every young person who goes through regardless what year they are going through can be reassured that system is credible and they can have faith their exam results can lead them to different options they will have."

She dismissed a report at the weekend which claimed grades would be manipulated so that more pupils did worse.

"I find it quite bizarre that anyone would suggest a government or agency would deliberately manipulate results so that pupils came off worse," she said.

"Why would any government or agency want to do something that is a disservice to our pupils? What we have done is that we have a system that is fair and credible so the SQA have worked through how difficult the exams are...and they have also looked at whether disruption has had an impact."