Victory over school exams scandal – Now let’s win on jobs, education and pay

Young Socialists Scotland statement

The SNP-led Scottish government have been forced by mass pressure into a complete and humiliating climbdown over school exam grades.

The Young Socialists – Young Workers’ Rights campaign welcomes this victory over politicians and a system designed to mitigate against the working class.

Tens of thousands of working-class students will now have the grades their teachers recommended.

The Scottish government and the SQA’s “algorithm” was designed to bake in class bias against working class young people.

That became clear for all to see when the figures emerged showing schools covering the most deprived areas of Scotland had seen downgrades more than double the most affluent ones.

In working class communities almost 50% of students had seen their results lowered by the SQA.

When the exams results were released Young Socialists and Young Workers’ Rights Campaign mobilised immediately to call for mass protests.

We supported, took part and spoke at the protest in Glasgow organised by school students. We demanded that the teachers assessments should be the basis for the grades. We also called for school students strikes if the government did not back down.

Make no mistake, this was a victory won by struggle and solidarity. The SNP leadership feared a growing revolt amongst young people, parents and teachers.

All downgraded results have now been withdrawn and the higher teachers’ recommendations as to grades will now be the awards for more than 75,000 mainly working class students who had their grades down changed by the SQA.

After a week of defending the process, SNP leaders have been forced by mass pressure to retreat.

Just last week, Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney said that this precise outcome would be “not credible”.

Well done to all who protested and refused to accept the scandal. The lessons are that governments can be beaten by class struggle and solidarity.

And that from the start this was a “political issue”, despite the attempts of politicians to blame the SQA alone

capitalism

Capitalism has inequality as part of its DNA. Any politicians or governments who defend capitalism – as the Tory, SNP and Labour leaders all do – will try to attack the rights of workers and young people.

We have no choice but to organise, and not just on the exams issue but also for democratic control over education, for a £12 an hour minimum wage, trade unions rights at work and for free education.

That also means fighting for a socialist future. Young people are facing a jobs slaughter, a zero hours future as the capitalist system topples into an unprecedented crisis. School Students and young people must get organised. Contact us to set up a School Student union, join a trade union at work.

Young Socialists stands for:

• A united mass campaign of school students/leavers, teachers, school staff and the trade unions to fight class inequality, cuts and low pay in education.  
• Scrap the SQA – No to the all or nothing exams system. For a system of assessment and exams, democratically overseen by teachers’ unions, school students and parents, to encourage learning for all.
• A campaign for Covid health and safety as schools return. Organise walkouts and industrial action by teachers and students if schools are unsafe.
• Cancel all PFI/ PPP contracts in schools.
• Free, fully publicly funded education from nursery to university. Scrap student debt and the loans system, introduce living grants.
• No to mass youth unemployment. For massive public investment in job creation with trade union rates of pay for all, training to guarantee a job at the end. for trade union rights at work.