It is now more than a year since Tes Scotland first reported calls for the 2021 exams to be cancelled. These came amid the tumult following cancellation of the 2020 exams in March last year: many were already anticipating the difficulties that the next round of annual exams would present.

In April 2020, one union leader was already describing the 2021 exams as “a monster” that teachers and students would “not able to deliver”. Yes, there was a risk that cancellation so early would have looked like a mistake if Covid receded more quickly than it ultimately did, but a decisive response a year ago could have resulted in a very different situation to that facing teachers and students today.

Cancellation at that point would have allowed time before the summer to plan alternative forms of assessment for the exceptional year that 2020-21 was always going to be. And outright cancellation of the 2021 exams was not the only option: some argued at the time for a definitive statement that the exams would go ahead, whatever happened with Covid, allowing time to devise a safe and secure alternative means of running those exams.

In reality, of course, a year ago Scottish education’s national bodies and decision makers were already consumed by what many (rightly) predicted would be a fiasco come results day in August 2020. Now, sadly, we’re in the position where it does not look like hyperbole to suggest that the situation in 2021 could end up being even worse.

A case in point was the piece by Tes Scotland reporter Emma Seith earlier this week revealing that thousands of pupils were sharing information about this year’s “exams” on TikTok.

Assessments taking place right now are routinely being referred to as exams. The national Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams were belatedly cancelled in piecemeal fashion last year (National 5s on 7 October, Highers and Advanced Highers on 8 December), but teachers and students across the land are currently embroiled in exam-like assessment nonetheless, whatever the SQA might say.

One big difference this year, of course, is that, with the organisational onus on schools, approaches are not standardised. Even within the same school, students may not be sitting these exams on the same day - hence the widespread sharing on social media of details about these assessments, an eventuality many warned about months ago.

The situation is - as one school leader, not given to wild pronouncements, told Tes Scotland - an “utter shitstorm” that you could “see coming a mile away”.

The same school leader said that “we really should have been more creative in how we captured evidence throughout the session”, adding that what many pupils are going through just now is “the worst of all scenarios in many ways”.

And, after 2020 and 2021, what of 2022 and beyond? Last year, there was much talk of Covid catalysing exam reform; the past year or so has certainly exposed the deficiency of a system in which success over up to 13 years in school is still largely judged by the efficiency with which one can regurgitate a series of stock answers in a short burst of exams. Yet, there is concern that this debate has quietened down. As the aforementioned school leader put it: “Are we seriously just going to revert back to what was there before?”

With a new Parliament forming this week, however, there may be some fresh impetus. There is much to be optimistic about in the new crop of MSPs - the first woman of colour elected to the Scottish Parliament, Kaukab Stewart, being a teacher is one notable example.

Organisational inertia and haphazard decision making have not served anyone well in these 14 months (and counting) of qualifications chaos. Here’s hoping the situation will finally start improving in the coming weeks - for there are plenty who say it couldn’t get much worse.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 14 May 2021 issue under the headline “When is an exam not an exam? (It’s not a trick question…)”