SNP education chief John Swinney will tell pupils how their controversial school grades will be reviewed today after a climbdown by the First Minister.
Swinney, who is also deputy first minister, is facing calls to resign over his handling of controversial assessments to replace exams wiped out by coronavirus.
Teachers’ estimates were more likely to be downgraded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority among pupils from less well-off areas of Scotland.
It led to protests by pupils in the centre of Glasgow and, after days of anger, an apology from Nicola Sturgeon.
Swinney will face the music days after claiming there was “no evidence” of bias against disadvantaged youngsters.
The defence was torn apart when Nicola Sturgeon admitted yesterday: “We did not get this right and I am sorry for that.”
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray is leading calls for Swinney to go, but Tories said they will wait until details of the plan to fix the mess.
Greens welcomed the apology yesterday. However Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie warned: “We will listen to John Swinney’s proposals in Parliament and if we are not satisfied with what he puts forward, we will vote to remove him.”
All parties would have to sign up to a vote of no confidence, proposed by Labour, to have any impact - but the SNP Government could still ignore it.
The political storm centred on controversial final grades, published last week, which revealed people in the most deprived areas had results marked down by 15.2 percentage points compared with 6.9 in the wealthiest areas. It led to accusations schools were being assessed on past performance rather than for individual merit.
Apologising yesterday, Sturgeon said: “Our concern, which was to make sure the grades young people got were as valid as those they would have got in any other year perhaps led us to think too much about the overall system and not enough about the individual pupil.
“That has meant too many students felt they have lost out on grades they should have had, and also that it has happened as a result not of anything they’ve done but because of a statistical model or algorithm, and in addition, that burden has not fallen equally across our society.”
