Plans to scrap exams for fourth-year secondary school pupils will “perpetuate the harm” inflicted by previous reforms, a leading educationist has warned.
Lindsay Paterson, the emeritus professor of education policy at Edinburgh University, criticised a review led by Professor Louise Hayward under which National 5s would be abandoned and replaced with a school leaving certificate known as the Scottish Diploma of Achievement.
Pupils would be judged more extensively on assessment of coursework by their teachers and on how they apply “real-life skills” of investigation and problem-solving to annual projects.
But Paterson said the review, published last week, needed to be “challenged, rigorously and radically, because it is deeply disappointing”. “Its methods were flawed and its recommendations vapid,” he said.
