Attainment in Higher exams has fallen for the third year running, new figures show.

Scottish Qualifications Authority statistics show A-C passes at Higher declined marginally, by 0.2 per cent, between 2017 and 2018.

National 5 qualifications have fallen 2.1 per cent while National 4 attainment has dropped 1.6 per cent.

The figures, updated from August to account for issues such as appeals and late results, show that there were 55,083 band-A passes at Higher this year, 48,592 at B and 44,274 at C.

Scottish Labour said more funding for the education sector was needed to bolster attainment.

The party’s education spokesman, Iain Gray, said: “The SNP should be utterly ashamed of these figures.

“Education is supposed to be Nicola Surgeon’s top priority; instead, teachers are overworked and underpaid, and schools have faced £400m worth of cuts since 2010.

“Young people are being failed and opportunities are being cut off by the mess this government is making of education.”

However, when the results were published in August, the Scottish government preferred to focus on the number of Higher passes remaining almost unchanged over the past year, despite a fall of more than 2.4 per cent in the S5-6 school roll. It also pointed to the growing numbers taking Advanced Highers.

Mr Swinney said: “It is important to remember that we will always see slight variations in pass rates and the results show that we have a robust, credible assessment system in place.”