In June 2021, the Scottish Government announced that the country’s only exams body would be scrapped and replaced by a new specialist agency.

This decision came after the 2020 results scandal, when the SQA (and the Scottish Government) tried to use an algorithm to suppress the grades of pupils in the poorest areas, and yet more exam controversy in 2021. In a remarkable coincidence, the demise of the SQA also happened to be announced on the day that a long-awaited and, it turned out, critical OECD report into Scottish education was published.

The message from the then education secretary was clear: “We will replace the SQA.”

Unsurprisingly, the bell tolling for Scotland’s much-maligned exams body grabbed the headlines, distracting from a lengthy report which recommended a substantial overhaul to the curriculum and the ways in which progress is measured. A review, chaired by Prof Ken Muir, was quickly announced, and the process for scrapping the SQA and building something new in its place had, in theory, begun.

In June 2024 – three SQA-run exam seasons later – the Scottish Government published the Education (Scotland) Bill, which officially announced that the SQA would be replaced by a new body known as Qualifications Scotland, which is scheduled to become operational in Autumn 2025.

It was supposed to be a moment of achievement and progress but, had education secretary Jenny Gilruth still been a class teacher, she’d have been looking at a sea of hands in response.

Is Qualifications Scotland just the SQA with a new name?

Why are the same employees remaining in place, even the top leadership, if the agency had failed to completely?

What will prevent the emergence of all same issues that have plagued the SQA for years?

Convincing responses were in short supply.

Now, a few months later, the SQA has published "A Prospectus for Change,"  which it describes as a “roadmap” for a “year-long transition from SQA to Qualifications Scotland.” All pretence that we’re seeing the abolition and replacement of a discredited organisation has now, finally, been dropped – one is simply going to “transition” into the other.

Critics will obviously say that this is now, without doubt, just a rebranding job – that the letterheads and staff ID cards and the big sign at the front door will change, but little else.

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Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the country’s largest teaching union which represents over 80% of teachers and lecturers, has previously said that cultural change is needed to avoid continuing the “distant, remote, unresponsive ways of working” that have dogged the SQA for years.

But after reviewing the prospectus, Mrs Bradley is less than convinced of success.

"We are clear that this can only happen if the professional voice of Scotland’s teachers is at the heart of decision making in the new organisation. 

“As it stands, though, the EIS remains concerned that under current legislative proposals, we are looking at plans merely for some minor rebranding rather than the fundamental change that is so desperately needed, with teacher voice continuing to be under-represented in the governance and decision making of Qualifications Scotland.”

Regardless, the SQA insists that, post-metamorphosis, it can “win back” the trust of teachers and pupils – although that list that should also include parents, politicians, major institutions and the broader Scottish public.

Of course, this declaration is also, by definition, an admission from those in charge that the SQA has, under their leadership, completely lost the trust of the people that it is supposed to serve. That seems like a massive, critical failure, yet those responsible for the disaster are the ones running the recovery operation.

The new report claims that the SQA will ‘reset’ relationships, but it is striking that this process doesn’t seem to involve acknowledging the behaviour that completely destroyed trust in the SQA in the first place – an omission that sends a clearer message than most of the pledges being made.

And what does the promised ‘reset’ look like? Well, that’s a good question.

The report includes a few sentences about changing the way in which the SQA communicates, and they even go so far as to promise radical acts like listening to others. There’s no shortage of rhetoric-heavy pledges, from a promise to “give every learner and every educator the opportunity to have their voice heard.” There will also be a new “SQA educator panel” and there are plans are improve “credibility” with teachers and students.

If you didn’t know any better, you might read the report and come to the conclusion that the SQA’s main problem in recent years has just been bad PR.

But recent concerns over the handling of the Higher History exam, and the fallout of the resulting investigation carried out by the SQA, has reminded teachers and critics that the agency faces serious questions about its efficiency and trustworthiness.

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Aside from looking at communication planning, much of the exam board’s new prospectus focuses on explaining what the SQA currently does and how Qualifications Scotland will do those same jobs, only better.

This will, we are told, involve “grasping the potential of technology” in order to “streamline” services, for example by “increasing digital access to qualifications”,  allowing users to “seamlessly access services online,” or “providing leadership on the use of AI in qualifications and assessment.”

It will also see the SQA “shifting the balance of assessment approaches”, which means decreasing the proportion of final grades that are decided by end-of-year exams, and “reviewing and rationalising the qualification portfolio”, which hints at changes to the actual subjects and courses on offer.

Essentially the SQA is taking control of the exam reform process in Scottish education. Imagine if that had been proposed all the way back in 2021.

These concerns, and more, will only grow louder now that the SQA has triumphantly announced its plan to create its own replacement.

And where does all of this leave the rest of us?

After three years, and all those promises of genuine reform, we now have a ‘roadmap’ on offer, but it looks like it takes us right back down the same old road.