Higher History exam marking fiasco is worse than it appears

It has now been more than two months since The Herald first reported on what has become the latest in a seemingly endless line of SQA scandals.

First we reported that teachers were speaking out after the exam board ‘moved the goalposts’ for Higher History students. This, we were told, was achieved by changing the marking standards after the exam had taken place – a decision that might go some way to explaining the collapse in overall pass rates and the huge drop in performance levels in the Scottish History paper.

The SQA insisted that there was nothing to see here, but rather than allow ourselves to be fobbed off we kept digging as more and more individuals and organisations raised concerns.

A month after our initial reporting we revealed that the SQA had, very quietly, opened an investigation into the marking of Higher History – despite having previously called our reporting on the matter “misleading”.

The investigation is being carried out by a member of SQA staff rather than someone independent, which has prompted obvious and inevitable questions about the exam board marking its own homework. This is an organisation so dysfunctional and lacking in trust that it functions as a standalone punch line, yet the people running it seemed to think it has the credibility to investigate its own failures. It’s the sort of arrogance that would be extraordinary if we were discussing almost any other organisation.

On top of that, the review is late. Really late.

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At first the SQA told us it would be dealt with in a few days – now, despite my extremely persistent questions, they cannot or will not even give us an idea of when it might conclude.

Officials have also refused to answer questions about the number of pupils whose grades might have to be changed, which is presumably because even considering the logistics the process is keeping people up at night.

We know that more than 10,000 students sat Higher History last year, and that the Scottish History paper at the centre of this scandal is mandatory, so if the SQA does finally admit to a major problem with marking this year, will it then have to remark every one of those papers?

I’m not sure there’s a fair alternative, and I’m even less sure that anyone would trust the SQA with it if there were.

And then what to do to address the unfairness that young people have faced – including some who have missed out on university places. In a normal country you might expect the people being paid huge salaries to run the SQA would face some sort of consequences but, as we know, that doesn’t happen in Scotland where, as with the ferry fiasco, accountability for incompetence seems to be an alien concept.

This might all look like a disaster to you but I’m here to let you know that things are, in fact, even worse than they appear.

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Yes, this scandal could potentially impact on the existing Higher History results of students across Scotland – but it is also affecting the experiences of those studying the course this year.

Why? Well think about it for a moment.

The central problem here is that History teachers have accused the SQA of changing the marking standards that are applied to the Higher exam. The SQA responded by telling those teachers that they were wrong (par for the course for the SQA, sadly) and then, without admitting it, quietly launched an internal investigation into the application of the marking standards for Higher history.

So if you’re a History teacher, what do you do now?

Should you proceed with teaching your course the way you’ve been doing (successfully) for years, on the basis that the SQA hasn’t officially confirmed any changes?

Or should you try to make changes to your course that reflect the apparently new standards (which, if you are also a marker, you were expected to apply to the most recent set of exam papers) despite the fact that the SQA has not communicated the details of, or justification for, any new approach?

And if you get it wrong, how many of your students are going to end up being penalised for something which is not their fault or yours?

As things stand, we have made it to the end of October – about a third of the way through Higher courses – without the standards for the History course having been specified. The implications of this, in terms of both workload and stress levels, are horrendous, and teachers are also worried that the confusion and lack of communication will end up putting students off the subject entirely.

So with things already bad and clearly getting worse, I went back to the SQA again today to ask if they can give any update on when the review they’re carrying out will be completed. They could not, or would not, do so.

I also asked them to clarify how many students could be affected, up to that upper limit of about 10,000. They could not, or would not, do so.

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All they will say (on repeat) is that the investigation is a “substantial piece of work” and that they “owe it to learners to make sure the review is robust and rigorous” – although they seemingly didn’t owe it to learners to investigate at all until it became clear they couldn’t just ignore the mounting public pressure.

What students are owed is a competent, transparent, and trustworthy exam board, but that never seems to be an option.

But this scandal can’t be allowed to rumble on into November with no resolution in sight, and if that does look likely then Jenny Gilruth will, surely, have to take action?