Relief for Mairi McAllan on results day - but her real test is still to come
Mairi McAllan can be relieved at a decent first report card - but by the government’s own measure, it’s the next destination that will really grade her
Tens of thousands of adults have been holding their breath anxiously this week in anticipation of their young charges opening text messages delivering that most fraught of information - exam results.
While the contents of those messages will help shape the future of the students who receive them, they also mean a great deal to the fortunes of Mairi McAllan.
No doubt the new education secretary - just three months in post - let out a long sigh of relief when she had early sight of Scotland’s marks.
This was a fraught year. Not only is Ms McAllan new in post but this was also the first year of the new Qualifications Scotland, the organisation replacing the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
The SQA was scrapped following a series of marking and assessment controversies. Its replacement has faced criticism that it is merely the same body in different clothing.
Costs for setting up the new organisation have also soared beyond what was initially estimated.
Had anything gone wrong this year, it would have been a disastrous start for the new cab sec.
Instead, exam results allocation has run smoothly and there is little sense, although it is still early, that marking and grading has gone askew in any subject.
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Ms McAllan, clearly excellently briefed and with a quick study of her new portfolio, was sent out confidently on the media rounds to hail attainment across the board.
And that is, almost exclusively, correct. Attainment is up and Scotland’s young people can rightly be proud of their achievements.
A record number, both generally and from the most deprived backgrounds, are off to university.
There are complicated questions to be asked about how parity of esteem between various leaver destinations is achieved when university is still framed as the peak of achievement.
Interestingly, Ms McAllan distanced herself on Tuesday from the Scottish government’s long held position that five Highers is the “gold standard” of attainment, pointing to vocational achievement.
Complicated questions, too, about funding. Ms McAllan, asked about the affordability of free university tuition, pointed to Westminster and said UK government immigration decisions have hamstrung Scottish universities’ earning potential.
While this is right, it is deeply foolish of any country to underpin its university funding using a mechanism for which it has no levers to control.
Anyway, that’s for a different day. More urgently, Mc McAllan too has been hamstrung.
On Tuesday she visited Broughton High School.
It was just 20 minutes along the road and 11 years ago that Ms McAllan’s fate was shaped by her predecessor Nicola Sturgeon.
Ms Sturgeon, in words that would haunt not just she but first ministers and education secretaries to come, pledged to close the poverty related attainment gap by 2026.
Here we are in 2026 and the gap remains a maw.
Last year the narrowing of the gap at Higher level was 0.1 per cent. This year it was 0.9 per cent.
I’d work out how many years closing the attainment gap is going to take at that pace but my own Higher maths is a trauma I’d rather leave behind me.
An underpinning mission for all Scottish government education policy is GIRFEC (getting it right for every child). One of the main measures of success for schools, alongside exam results, is positive leaver destinations (PLD) - or where pupils go next.
Exams results are one measure for Ms McAllan. Where she chooses to go next - on university funding, tackling poverty, vocational choices - will be the real test of her tenure.
Generations of young people await.
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