The timescale for the independent review of qualifications and assessment - triggered by concerns that there is too much focus on “traditional exam and memory-based assessment” in the upper secondary system in Scotland - has been revealed.

A new document published today by the Scottish government reveals that the Qualifications and Assessment Independent Review Group - which is being led by University of Glasgow assessment expert Professor Louise Hayward - will make its final recommendations by the end of March.

According to the document, the independent review group - which the papers say was due to meet for the first time in May - will also complete an interim report for the education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, by the end of December.

Exams system in Scotland under review

Membership of the group is not revealed but the document says “all interested groups with a stake in the future of qualifications [will] have the opportunity to feed into the review”.

The independent review group has, meanwhile, been set the task of exploring issues including:

• The purposes and uses of a qualification/exams system, including recognition of learning, accreditation, selection and accountability.
• The approaches to assessment in vocational and technical subjects and lessons that could be learned from these approaches
• Fairness, equity and the impact of different approaches to assessment for qualifications, from ideas to practice - the process of change and learning from our past
• Wider national and international approaches to the future of assessment and qualifications

Ms Somerville announced that Professor Hayward would lead work on “the purpose and principles which should underpin any reform of national qualifications and assessment” in October.

However, the Scottish government has made it clear that, although it believes “the time is right” to reform qualifications and assessment, “externally assessed examinations will remain part of the new system”.

In June last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) review of Curriculum for Excellence highlighted the “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system” in the senior phase of secondary.

It said that Scotland needed to move away from “traditional” exams and embrace assessment approaches that better align with 21st-century curricula.

Then, in August, a second OECD report specifically looking at assessment and qualifications criticised the “examination loading” that takes place in Scotland, with students sitting exams at the end of S4, S5 and S6.

That report suggested scrapping exams in S4 and moving to a “school graduation certificate or diploma” for leavers.

In an interview with Tes Scotland in March, Glasgow’s new director of education, Douglas Hutchison, said Scotland’s exam system was “ripe for reform”. He said there were multiple ways that students could cash in their learning “other than an exam for two hours on a wet Wednesday morning”.