SNP fails its school exams - Badly

 The Scottish Government is to abandon the International Baccalaureate, and break yet another SNP education promise.

Shadow Cabinet Secretary, Liz Smith MSP says:

"There has been an extraordinary failure of the SNP to provide leadership over the reform of the school exam system, due to take place in 2014.

"There has been a mass of contradiction in the SNP's policy. We were told by Fiona Hyslop that there would be stand alone SQA exams in literacy and numeracy and then we were told by Mike Russell there would not. We were told by Fiona Hyslop that the new SQA Scottish Baccalaureate would become a flagship policy for pupils in the Sixth Form yet we know that many schools are cutting back on their Advanced Higher courses and we know that Mike Russell has had to admit that no university has made an offer of a place on this qualification. Now we are told that the Fiona Hyslop pledge to encourage schools to take up the highly regarded International Baccalaureate has also been ditched.

"This is an unholy mess and sets out completely the wrong message to parents, pupils and teachers. It appears that there was virtually no consultation with the universities before the SNP made its manifesto pledges - consultation which is crucial to ensuring that school exam qualifications are both appropriate and highly regarded as entry requirements for higher education.

"Last week, I was privileged to visit Motherwell College; a college which has recently decided to offer the International Baccalaureate precisely because it is such a highly valued qualification in the rest of the world as well as in Scotland. That is a very important message from a leading college and the Scottish Government would do well to start listening to the educational world instead of muddling along with confusion and indecision."

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