Is real education reform out of reach until after the next election?

The announcement was timed to coincide with – and distract from – a major review into the nation’s school system by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and promised “change in order to improve, to achieve more and to deliver for Scotland’s pupils.”

It all feels a very, very long time ago.

The process of reform was essentially kicked off with the announcement that the government planned to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). The nation’s only exam board has struggled ever since its inception and, during Covid, was at the heart of the scandal over attempts to suppress the grades of pupils from the poorest areas. It’s worth noting, however, that even before that point the organisation was viewed with well-earned contempt by many teachers, including those who worked for it each year marking exam papers.

The government also decided to split Education Scotland, removing its school inspection powers and returning to a system of (in theory) independent inspection that it had abandoned a few years after the SNP first won power.

But just one day after the initial announcement, it started to become clear that this so-called reform process was already in trouble. For reasons that seemed baffling at the time, the Scottish Government announced that it would begin with a review into the structures of the SQA and Education Scotland, which would be led by Prof. Ken Muir. This is despite the fact that a huge amount of work was (obviously) going to be needed to establish what changes should be made to the structure of learning and, especially, assessment in S4-6 – after all, how can you build a new qualifications body if you don’t know what sort of changes are going to be made to both the practice and philosophy of end-of-school assessment?

As it happens, this work would ultimately be carried out as part of a process widely known as the Hayward Review, but that decision wasn’t made until October 2021, by which time the Muir Review was well underway.

On top of that, a much larger conversation was (obviously) going to be needed about the nature, and future, of Scottish education if major, fundamental, and maybe even radical reforms were going to have any chance of success. Clearly, this would have to happen first for the processes to make any sense. The government did indeed launch something that they erroneously called a “National discussion on education” but it wasn’t announced until June 2022 (months after the review of education bodies had already concluded) and lasted for only a few months.

If this all seems ill-conceived and badly-organised (at best) then you’re not alone. In fact, near the start of this saga I was asked what I thought about the plans, and I offered a response that I would end up repeating many times: if someone asked me to put together a process that looked like reform, but that actually prevented meaningful change and protected the status quo, I’d probably come up with something that looks a lot like the Scottish Government’s plans.

Nonetheless, thanks to the hard work and professionalism of those involved in the reviews, as well as enormous and widespread enthusiasm for change, we did get proposals to reform qualifications, transform the senior phase of secondary school, and establish credible and competent organisations to oversee the key aspects of education delivery. Against the odds, and almost certainly against the wishes of the Scottish Government, Muir and Hayward delivered.

And then the government decided to reject the key recommendations.

So the SQA isn’t being replaced – instead it is being rebranded as Qualifications Scotland. All the same people will still be there, making the same terrible decisions they’ve been making for years, and the organisation will continue to mark its own homework while acting as both the qualifications delivery body and the regulator of overall quality.

Major reform of the exam system that completely dominates the final years of high school is also off the table, with education secretary Jenny Gilruth having rejected the key suggestion that Scotland moves away from its bizarre obsession with annual exams and instead develops a system that is both fit for the 21st Century and more in-line with international norms.

Removing exams for most S4 pupils, and effectively turning Highers into two-year programmes, would have moved Scotland away from the extreme, high-stakes position it currently occupies. It would also have provided weeks, perhaps even months, more time to spend on teaching, learning, and meaningful development, allowing for this stage of schooling to be brought more in line with the rest of the curriculum while opening up a broader range of opportunities for teenagers. But it isn’t going to happen.

There will probably be some changes, like a rebalancing of some course assessments to include more coursework, but they’re ultimately quite minor in the grand scheme of things. What’s more, responsibility for developing and implementing them is largely being handed to – you guessed it – the new SQA, whose leadership are once again being rewarded for years of highly-paid failure and incompetence.

What the government is now proposing doesn’t come close to matching the ambitions of the Muir, Hayward or OECD reviews. It doesn’t even live up to the SNP’s own promises.

But that, I’m afraid, always looked inevitable.

So what now?

MSPs will have to decide whether to back an Education Bill that will do little to deliver the changes Scotland needs. If they do, they risk entrenching the very problems we’ve been told for years that we’re trying to tackle.

But the next real opportunity for progress probably comes with the next Holyrood election, after which the country should take the chance to reset and begin the (at least) decade of work needed to develop the education system that our children need and deserve.