Scotsman head of news Dale Miller speaks to our education correspondent Calum Ross ahead of exam results for Scottish students
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00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Monday. My name is Dale
00:12Miller. I'm Head of News at the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Education Correspondent
00:17Callum Ross. Callum, we're going to talk about the front page of the Scotsman firstly, and
00:22it's your exclusive on the front. Over to you. It's a really significant update around
00:28exams and a trend that's continued over the past 12 months. That's right, Dale. I mean,
00:35it was just last week, wasn't it, that me and you were speaking on here about the big
00:39rise in the number of pupils with additional support needs and how it could lead to changes
00:45to the way schools are designed in Scotland. Kind of move away from sort of open plan buildings
00:52and super schools. Now today, we've been reporting how the trend is putting schools
00:58under pressure in terms of exams around exams time. The figures show a 40% increase in the
01:06number of pupils requiring special arrangements for exams. That's between 2019 and last year,
01:15and the feeling is that it's likely to have increased again this year. So that's the actual
01:20figures. That's up from just over 20,000 pupils in 2019 before the pandemic to more than 28,000
01:29pupils last year. Now special arrangements, things like separate rooms for exams, extra time,
01:36you know, supervised rest periods, breaks, things like that. And what has also emerged in the
01:43figures, this is from a Freedom of Information request we put in, there's been a big increase
01:48in the requirement for invigilators to oversee these exams. Now that's probably linked to the
01:55need for more separate rooms and more supervised rests and things like that, but the number of
02:01invigilators is up 20% since 2019, and the cost of hiring them is up by over half, 52% to 4.8
02:12million, and that figure's probably likely to rise as well. And that's possibly, I mean,
02:19not being confirmed, but it's possibly linked to the idea that maybe there's a bit of a shortage
02:25of invigilators too, and they're maybe having to spend a bit more money hiring them. But from
02:30speaking to experts, it seems to be that one of the things driving this has been a big sort of
02:35increase in anxiety among pupils, particularly since the pandemic.
02:42So Callum, these are really significant numbers. I mean, we heard some comments, you know,
02:49doing the rounds that the number of invigilators had gone up, but the size of the rise and the
02:56need to make special arrangements for a lot more pupils, you know, there's a clear trend here. And
03:03do you expect that this trend will actually continue and grow with anything?
03:08Yeah, that's, I mean, I spoke to Graeme Hutton, you know, General Secretary of School Leaders
03:14Scotland, who represents kind of headteachers and deputy headteachers, and he certainly thought that
03:21was the way it's going, it's going to continue increasing. And this has played in, if people
03:26are able to read the piece today, you know, you see that it's kind of reignited the debate about
03:31the future of exams and whether we have too many exams in Scotland or proposals to get rid of
03:37exams at National 5, S4 sort of level. They've been on the government, Jenny Gilruth's desk,
03:44the Education Secretary's desk for over a year now, and we've still not got a decision. So
03:49I think that'll come fairly soon. But there's definitely going to be sort of greater kind of
03:55question marks around this year's exam results and what the future of exams in Scotland is.
04:02And Calum, looking ahead to next week, August the 6th, I think it's Tuesday, next week is
04:08results day. There'll be thousands of pupils out there that will be sweating on these results,
04:14and their parents as well. What we're expecting, I mean, there's been talk that
04:21some of the, I won't, lenience is not the right word, but it will be slightly harder in terms of
04:27how the exams were judged than the pandemic is. Any thoughts on what we might expect next week?
04:34You know, should pupils be rightly stressed or, you know, will good work still be rewarded?
04:43I think we're probably going to see the overall pass, like number of pupils passing at A, B and
04:49C, sort of returning back down to sort of pre-pandemic levels. That's been the direction.
04:56In 2022, the SQA operated a sort of generous grading system to take account of the impact of
05:02the disruption to education during the COVID period. And last year, there was a, but that's
05:10pretty much gone this year. There is some allowances, there's, you know, some recognition
05:17still, but we're pretty much back to where we were before the pandemic. But yeah, I mean,
05:22everyone, everyone kind of remembers it, don't they? The nerves waiting for that, what used to
05:26be an envelope, I think it's probably still an envelope for some people, but for an app or
05:31whatever it is these days, waiting for those results to come in and how they affect everything.
05:36But yeah, only one more week to go.
05:39Callum, I still remember it myself, absolutely terrifying, but good luck to all those parents
05:46and any pupils out there waiting and hoping that they get the results that they're after.
05:52You can read Callum's exclusive on the trends around exams at scotsman.com. You just go to
06:01the navigation bar, look for the education tab, that'll give you all our latest coverage,
06:06including Callum as well, writing about what the significance of this is and also how the future
06:14of pupils needs to be put first in this whole discussion around what to do with exams as well.
06:19Callum, thanks very much for joining us. Please, everyone follow us on Facebook,
06:23X and Instagram, and go out and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow in which we'll have all the
06:28latest on Labor's and Chancellor Rachel Reeve's spending cuts, which are due to be announced this
06:34afternoon. Thanks for joining us.