The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) results data for 2025 has been published today.
The A to C pass rate is up slightly on 2024 at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher.
Overall, the disadvantage-related attainment gap narrowed across those three qualifications when compared with last year - although only very slightly at Higher - which education secretary Jenny Gilruth has described as “encouraging”.
Other key developments include the highest-ever number of dual entries across National 4 and 5, a big rise in the uptake of vocational and technical qualifications, and a dramatic increase in the Higher history pass rate after the subject was hit by controversy last year.
Here are the SQA results headlines so far:
Today will be the last results day under the banner of the Scottish Qualifications Authority - which came into being in 1997 - with the body due to be replaced in December by Qualifications Scotland.
This is the first year since the pandemic that the approach to marking has returned to normal, with no measures in place to mitigate the disruption caused by Covid lockdowns.
SQA results day: Storm disruption
However, there was some disruption to the awarding process this year. Yesterday the SQA said that, as a result of Storm Floris, Royal Mail had confirmed some delays in the delivery of results.
It said that deliveries to the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland would be delayed due to the adverse weather and that “further localised delays to deliveries may occur at short notice”. Affected candidates have been advised to contact their school or college in the first instance.
Pass rates improve
The key data for 2025 in terms of pass rates and the attainment gap is:
- This year the A-C pass rate at National 5 is 78.4 per cent, compared with 77.2 per cent in 2024 (78.2 per cent in 2019, the last pre-Covid year).
- The pass rate at Higher is 75.9 per cent, compared with 74.9 per cent in 2024 (74.8 per cent in 2019).
- The pass rate at Advanced Higher is 76.7 per cent, compared with 75.3 per cent in 2024 (79.4 per cent in 2019).
- The attainment gap at National 5 is 16.6 percentage points, compared with 17.2 in 2024 (the gap in 2019 was 17 percentage points).
- The attainment gap at Higher is 17.1 percentage points, compared with 17.2 in 2024 (the gap in 2019 was 16.9 percentage points).
- The attainment gap at Advanced Higher is 12.8 percentage points, compared with 15.5 in 2024 (the gap in 2019 was 13.2 percentage points).
Higher history
The Higher history pass rate is 80.3 per cent this year.
The pass rate for the subject had dropped by just over 13 percentage points in 2024, going from 78.7 per cent in 2023 to 65.7 per cent. This led to accusations from some teachers that marking standards had changed, but the SQA insisted that the drop was down to a poorer cohort of students .
Arguably, the furore - which continued into 2025 - proved the final blow for the body’s beleaguered chief executive, Fiona Robertson, who announced she would be stepping down in February, days before the organisation was due to appear before MSPs over the issue.
More on SQA results and data 2025:
This is the second year since the pre-pandemic assessment arrangements returned in full, after coursework returned in 2023-24.
In 2023-24 the SQA said that it would “consider any impact on learners completing coursework for the first time” when determining final grades. However, this year there are no mitigations around the approach to marking. The SQA said it had returned to its pre-pandemic approach to awarding grades.
However, teachers still continue to report the lingering impact of the pandemic. SQA research in the wake of the 2024 exams found 76 per cent of teachers agreeing that many students were not as well prepared for national qualifications as their predecessors, with 68 per cent saying they disagreed that the education system as a whole had recovered well from the pandemic.
The S5 students of 2024-25 were in the final year of primary when the first lockdown hit in March 2020 and made the transition to secondary school without the usual support.
Teacher grades
On results day this year, around a fifth of candidates’ final grades were below their teacher estimate (20.8 per cent), with the remainder (79.2 per cent) either graded higher or the same as the teacher estimate.
The full analysis of the extent to which teacher estimated grades matched final grades has yet to be published by the SQA. However, in a media briefing this morning, chief examiner Donna Stewart revealed the headline statistics.
She said the analysis was important because it gave an indication of the level of appeals that the SQA might expect to receive, given that around a fifth of learners did not get the grades they had been predicted.
Dual entries at all-time high
Dual presentation - where students put forward for National 5 qualifications also do the work associated with National 4 in case they fail - has been a growing issue for the SQA and the Scottish government.
They argue that the practice adds to both teacher and student workload. Others, however, say it provides students with a safety net and gives them the chance to attain more valuable National 5 qualifications.
In 2025 the SQA said the volume of dual entry is “the highest number we have seen”: there were 34,885, or 10.4 per cent of entries at National 5, up 1.1 percentage points on 2024.
In 2018-19, the last full school year before Covid, 13,595 N5 entries were also entered for N4, which equated to 4.7 per cent of entries at N5.
Covid recovery
Education secretary Jenny Gilruth said today’s SQA results were “evidence of a strong recovery in Scotland’s schools, following the pandemic, with more passes at every level compared to last year” and “testament to the hard work of learners, teachers and parents and carers”.
She added: “These results also show the strength of Scotland’s vocational and technical qualifications, which play a key role in preparing so many young people for the future.
“I know that some young people will be disappointed with their results. I want to reassure them that there are a wide range of options and routes for success available, with support on hand throughout this week via the dedicated helpline run by Skills Development Scotland.”
Ms Stewart said: “The number of vocational and technical qualifications passed the 100,000 landmark for the first time, with record numbers of learners embracing the wide range of skills-based learning that schools, colleges, teachers and lecturers are working so hard to offer and that employers are crying out for.”
Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, said: “The increase in the number of vocational and technical qualifications is of particular note and highlights the appetite amongst Scotland’s young people and their teachers and lecturers for schools and colleges to be able to deliver a diversity of qualification pathways which are esteemed equally.”
She added: “Whilst we welcome the slight improvement in the closing of the poverty-related attainment gap, there is still some way to go to meet the Scottish government’s pledge to eliminate the impact of poverty in education.”
Teachers under pressure
Ms Bradley also said: “Although we may be seeing some green shoots of recovery in achievement, many young people are still experiencing the long-lasting societal and educational impacts of the pandemic period, coupled with years of austerity, while schools, colleges, teachers and lecturers continue to try to respond to the growing needs of learners with insufficient numbers of teaching staff and other professionals, and the resultant severe workload pressures that continue to be placed on all education staff.”
The reform of the SQA was triggered by the grading scandal during the Covid pandemic, when thousands of students had their results downgraded, and the subsequent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report on Curriculum for Excellence, which found “misalignment between CfE’s aspirations and the qualification system”.
A timeline published recently on the Scottish government website revealed Scottish students will undertake new qualifications at National 4 and National 5 levels from 2031, with the new Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications introduced in 2032.
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