Mr John Swinney (Scottish Education Secretary) announced the following in parliament this afternoon:
“I can confirm to Parliament today that all downgraded awards will be withdrawn.
Using powers available to me in the Education (Scotland) Act 1996, I am today directing the SQA to re-issue those awards based solely on teacher or lecturer judgement.
Schools will be able to confirm the estimates they provided for pupils to those that are returning to school this week and next.
The SQA will issue fresh certificates to affected candidates as soon as possible and, importantly, will inform UCAS and other admission bodies of the new grades as soon as practical in the coming days to allow for applications to college and university to be progressed.”
As a result of this announcement, during tomorrow’s induction day, Mr Fleming will issue new S5/6 pupils with the estimates submitted by the school to the SQA in May 2020. We will also contact all leavers over the coming days.
Mr Swinney added that: “There remains the need for the option of an appeal in some circumstances and detail on this will be set out by the end of the week.”
We will also communicate the revised appeal procedures once this has been shared with schools.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we complete this process.