Poorest Pupils Hit Hardest As Exam Results Downgraded In UK's First Covid Moderation

The Scottish government has become embroiled in a row over the moderation of exam results disadvantaging students from poorer backgrounds as critics warned the same problem could happen in the rest of the UK.

In Scotland’s first school year without exams due to coronavirus, the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s (SQA) moderation process reduced the pass rate of the poorest Higher pupils by more than twice that of the richest.

The pass rate of pupils in the most deprived data zones was reduced by 15.2% from teacher estimates after the exam board’s intervention.

In contrast, the pass rate for pupils from the most affluent backgrounds dropped by 6.9%.

Education commentators said “systemic biasing in favour of the least deprived” was the result of basing results on a school’s previous performance, rather than an individual’s track record.

Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray said using previous results from schools to decide grades “embeds disadvantage and the ridiculous league tables that has artificially hampered schools in more deprived areas”.

SNP MP Mhairi Black said she was “deeply concerned” with students from deprived areas seeing their results reduced at a higher rate and urged her colleagues running the Scottish Government to address the issue.

But Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon said that without the moderation the results would have been “unprecedented and therefore not credible”.

Barry Black, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Glasgow, told HuffPost UK that the SQA was warned about the impact on the most disadvantaged pupils by the Scottish parliament’s...

Continue reading on HuffPost