Scotland's attainment gap widens to worst level on record as pass rate falls

The attainment gap between Scotland’s best and worst off students has widened to the worst level on record.

Exam results day also revealed the number of students passing with the top grades fell from last year.

It comes after a “glitch” saw some of those who had signed up to get results on email being sent blank messages.

The attainment gap and pass rate fell for all qualifications, Nat 5, Higher and Advancer Higher, compared with last year.

This year’s results showed that 77.2% of those sitting National 5 exams passed with grades A to C – down from 78.8% in in 2023.

For Highers, 74.9% of students passed with the top bands, down from 77.1% last year, and for Advanced Highers 75.3% of students achieved A to C grades, falling from 79.8% in 2023.

Scotland

Students receiving ‘blank’ emails with no exam grades on Scottish results day

The Scottish Qualifications Authority said it was ‘working urgently to resolve the issue’.

For Nat 5, 17.2 percentage points separate the least and most deprived in pass rates, higher than last year’s 15.6pp and 0.2pp higher than 2019’s figure.

At Higher, 17.2pp was recorded as the difference – higher than the previous peak of 16.99pp in 2019. For Advanced Higher the gap was 15.5pp – also above the 2019 peak.

They represent the biggest gap between Scotland’s most affluent and most deprived children since the SQA began compiling its equalities monitoring report in 2020.

Scottish Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “Young people across Scotland should have woken up this morning to exciting news – instead they have woken up to a new level of SQA chaos.”

She went on: “The results speak for themselves – the poverty-related attainment gap is at its highest-ever level, while attainment has also fallen for all.”

The SQA said that different approaches to awarding results don’t allow for “meaningful conclusions to be drawn on changes in education performance”.

Results day was blighted by students receiving blank emails with no results on them as frustrated parents took to social media with the SQA working to “resolve the issue.”

More than 50,000 students had signed up to receive results by text or email, with grades coming in as of 8am on Tuesday.

Fiona Robertson, chief executive of SQA and Scotland’s chief examining officer, said: “Our warmest congratulations to the 145,000 learners across Scotland whose achievements are being celebrated today.

“They can be rightly proud of their positive performance.”

She added: “All learners can be confident that the qualifications they have earned – by demonstrating their knowledge, understanding and skills across full course assessment – provide a solid foundation for the next stage in their learning, training, or employment. We wish them all continued success.

“While there is some variability in the national attainment picture in 2024, this is a solid set of results for learners in National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses. 2024 also marks a record-breaking year for vocational qualifications, as Scotland’s learners excelled in achieving valuable skills to build rewarding careers.

“And all of this has been achieved by a group of learners who experienced significant disruption to teaching and learning during the pandemic.

“Scotland’s learners should be rightly proud of their achievements, supported by Scotland’s dedicated and hard-working teachers, lecturers, our schools and colleges, and the wider education community.”

The total of National Progression Awards, National Certificates, Skills for Work, and SQA Awards rose by 24.8% to 90,035.

Staff at a dedicated helpline are taking calls after the results, with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) setting up a special results helpline.

The results helpline can be contacted on 0808 100 8000 and will be open from 8am until 8pm on both Tuesday and Wednesday, and then from 9am to 5pm on Thursday and Friday.

The SQA has had a team of 7,400 markers grading about two million exam papers and more than 1.3m items of course work submitted as part of the process.