This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

The ongoing problems with the SQA and Higher History are now becoming completely ridiculous.

Before I explain why, let’s just make sure you’re up to speed.

The 2024 Higher History exams took place on the morning of the 21st of May.

More than ten thousand students sat the exams and the pass rate was 65.7% – a thirteen percentage point drop from the previous year.

Dig a little deeper and it gets worse, because in the Scottish History paper (which every student has to complete) the national average score collapsed, falling by 25% from 20.6 to 15.3 marks.

According to the people that know best – current History teachers, including active exam markers – the reason for all this was clear: the SQA changed the marking arrangements after the exam had taken place.

Specifically, students were required to give significantly more detail when responding to certain questions than has ever been the case in the past. I’ve explained a bit more about this part of the story in a previous article, which you can read here.

This change in policy was described as ‘moving the goalposts’ (and a lot of other things that aren’t printable here) and resulted in students up and down the country receiving lower grades than expected. I’m told that some missed out on university places.

But the SQA absolutely point-blank refused to accept that there was a problem.

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On the 21st of August, when we first reported on this story, their spokesperson tried to completely dismiss the concerns, and this pattern continued for several weeks – even in the face of mounting pressure from the teaching profession, public bodies, and politicians.

They even set out to undermine our reporting by describing it as “misleading” on social media.

Education secretary Jenny Gilruth (who taught a similar subject to History and can reasonably be expected to understand this issue very well) tried her best to stay out of it, but ultimately bowed to pressure and “asked” – rather than, say, demanded – to meet with SQA senior officials.


And then, on the 20th of September, a month after our initial coverage, we reported that the SQA had in fact launched an investigation into the marking of Higher History.

Did they actually announce this? Of course not – that would mean being honest and up-front and transparent, and Scotland’s only exam board doesn’t go in for that sort of stuff.

Instead, we found out because I submitted a number of questions to both the SQA and the Scottish Government on the day when Jenny Gilruth was due to meet SQA officials. I have no idea if either party would have bothered to make the investigation public otherwise.

The review is, according to the SQA, “being carried out independently by the SQA's Head of Standards”.

This might seem obviously absurd to you, but the SQA is adamant that there’s no problem with an SQA official investigating the conduct of the SQA and deciding whether or not the SQA should take action to address the earlier decisions of the SQA, even though this would of course raise serious questions about how the SQA operates and, given the scale of the consequences, would be likely to lead to calls for resignations of SQA officials. No problem at all.

When they admitted to having started the investigation, an SQA spokesperson told me it was “expected to conclude” the following week, which gave them until the 27th of September.

And then that date came and went. As did the whole of the following week, and this one too.

And I’ve not just been sitting waiting – I’ve gone back to the SQA again and again, day after day, asking if they could provide an update, or give a sense of when the report might be completed.

Over and over I got the same answer: we’ll let you know as soon as we can.

Which brings us to today. I’m told that the investigation is still ongoing, despite the fact that high schools across the country are about to go on holiday and, in some cases, won’t be back in until the 28th of October. The SQA still can’t say when it will conclude.

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Why is it taking so long? The obvious assumption is that the review has found evidence of a problem the SQA was adamant didn’t exist, but there’s no way to know for sure yet. Some people I’ve spoken to are even concerned that the delay is being caused by attempts at a cover up, such is the lack of trust in Scotland’s thoroughly discredited exam body.

A spokesperson told me today that the review is “a substantial piece of work” and that while the SQA understands the need to move quickly, they also “owe it to learners to ensure the review is robust and rigorous”.

They added: “The length of time being taken to carry out the review should in no way be used as the basis to speculate on the review outcome.” Doing so would, they said, “be unfair to learners”.

And finally, without a hint of irony, they said that the findings of the review that they insist is independent “will be subjected to independent external review and the final report will be published”. It’s like something from The Thick of It.

But even when it is published we won’t be at the end of the road.

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If the report says that nothing went wrong, will anyone believe it? Concerns were raised at the start about this not being a proper, independent investigation, and those issues remain, as does a general (and entirely appropriate) lack of trust in SQA

If, on the other hand, the report does admit to marking problems in Higher History, what happens next?

It’s hard to see any viable and fair solution other than a remark on Higher History exam papers, which would be a logistical nightmare and a humiliating disaster for both the SQA and the Scottish Government.

But what else is new?