Scotland cancels higher exams for 2021 due to COVID-19
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E-mail Xinhua, December 9, 2020
Next year's Higher and Advanced Highers exams are to be cancelled in Scottish schools, the education secretary of Scotland confirmed Tuesday.
The education secretary, John Swinney, told the Scottish Parliament that allowing the tests to take place would disproportionately impact pupils in the most deprived areas of the country.
He said pupils had lost significant amount of teaching time due the pandemic, with poorer communities suffering more.
Scottish schools will give pupils' final grades based on the judgement of their teachers.
"This is safe, it is fair, and it better recognises the reality of the disruption so many pupils have already had to their learning," he said.
There were more than 200,000 entries for Higher and Advanced Higher courses this year.
In Scotland, Highers exams are usually sat in the fifth year of secondary school (Year 12 in England) and Advanced Highers in their final year, sixth year (Year 13 in England).
Wales has cancelled all GCSE and A-level exams in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In England, A-levels and GCSEs are due to go ahead next summer, but extra measures including more generous grading, advance notice of exam topics and additional papers, will make the exams easier to make up for the disruption faced by students during the pandemic.
Northern Ireland is planning to hold all exams in 2021, with its education minister, Peter Weir, saying they represented the "fairest way of judging students".
The announcement of Scottish education secretary came shortly after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that many areas of Scotland would be changing levels after a review of lockdown restrictions, with the toughest Level four coronavirus restrictions moving down one level from Friday.
The new move means that non-essential shops and many other businesses across much of western and central Scotland will be allowed to reopen from Friday.
To bring life back to normal, countries including Britain, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States are racing against time to find a vaccine.
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