 The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on update on 2022 national qualifications. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interruptions or interventions. I call on the cabinet secretary for around 10 minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As I reaffirmed in Parliament on the 19th of January, it is our firm intention that exams will take place this year. I restated the significant modifications to courses and assessments already made by the SQA to take account of the expected disruption to learning. I set out the contingencies to support learners in the event of further disruption, as has been the position since we made the initial announcement in August last year. The SQA has been working closely with partners, including through the national qualifications group, to take account of the disruption that learners continue to face. Indeed, everyone involved in education, myself included, acknowledged what another exceptionally difficult year this has been. Two weeks ago, I advised that the SQA had indicated that a decision on the scenario 2 contingency was likely to be made soon, based on information such as national teacher and pupil absence levels. While the number of full and partial school closures has been small, it is clear that many secondary schools have experienced extreme disruption in the way of Omicron variant, particularly in the first half of January, in relation to both student and teacher absences. We continue to refine our school safety guidance accordingly, based on evidence on risks and benefits, including the changes that are published today, and are keeping the data under constant review as we move forward. In relation to the college sector, learners had to revert to a universally remote learning model rather than a hybrid model since late December. Given both the level of disruption and its impact on learning and teaching, the SQA board has now taken the decision to invoke the scenario 2 contingency measure, and the SQA will provide revision support to aid learners in their preparations for exams. The SQA will provide revision support for every course that has an exam. The type of support for each course will depend on the course and on the modifications to assessment that the SQA already made at the start of the academic session. Information is now available on the SQA website, setting out the existing modifications and the type of revision support that will be provided for each course by subject and by level. The SQA will provide the full detail of the revision support in early March. This time, it enables teachers to complete delivery of the full modified course requirements before learners turn their attention more fully towards revision in the run-up to the exams. This support is aimed at helping to reduce the stress for learners in preparing for their exams and in allowing them to maximise their performance. The SQA has today also announced its approach to exceptional circumstances, grading and appeals this year. Those measures have been developed in close consultation with members of the national qualifications 22 group. The exam exceptional circumstances approach is available to learners as exams are taking place and provides a backup for learners who are unable to attend their exam or exams due to illness or bereavement or where there is a disruption during the exam. That will include Covid-19 related absences. The service is based on SQA's established annual process. If a candidate is eligible for exceptional circumstances, then their centre will provide appropriate assessment evidence gathered during the course of the year and the SQA will review it against the national standard and award the appropriate grade. Once the exams have been completed and marked, the SQA will look at the outcomes through their standard processes to determine the 22 grade boundaries needed to achieve an A, B or C grade for that specific subject and level. Senior SQA appointees who are practising teachers or lecturers will take an expert decision based on a range of evidence. That includes the reflections of markers in the senior exam team as they mark and review a wide range of candidate exam scripts, estimates provided by centres and information such as the number of candidates entered and the number of centres presenting candidates for the course. The key focus will be to review how the course assessments worked this session as measured against the national standard. In recognition of the disruption that learners have faced over the past two years and the different assessment approaches applied, the approach to grading this year's exams will look to factor in the impact of the pandemic on learners. Those grade boundary decisions will be applied at a national level, individual local authority or school data will not be looked at and no algorithms will be used in the process. The expectation is that the overall outcomes in 2022 will represent an intermediary position between 2021 and pre-pandemic years. Once the results have been published, learners will have free direct access to appeal their result. The appeal service in 2022 acknowledges the particular challenges for learners this year. For this reason, as well as conducting a clerical check on exam scripts for each appeal, SQA appointees will review alternative assessment evidence that learners have completed through the year. That would be the same evidence as that used for an exam exceptional circumstances request. If, following the review of evidence, the SQA assesses that a higher grade has been achieved, then that will be awarded. If the review of evidence results in a lower grade than achieved in the exam, then the exam grade will stand. Delivery of this approach, which has the interests of our young people at its heart, will require the whole system to work together. SQA have agreed with the national qualifications group what SQA centres and learners need to do in the event that learners have not performed to the standard that is expected in their exam. The quality and children's rights impact assessments have been carried out and will be published in the coming weeks, alongside full detail and guidance on those measures. All of those measures underpin the 2022 exam diet, balancing the integrity, credibility of the qualifications against the on-going impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on learners. They will also give clarity and reassurance to learners with conditional and unconditional offers for colleges and universities. In addition to those measures by the SQA, I am clear that more is needed to support our young people in their learning. I have set out the measures that the SQA is taking, but there is, of course, an important role for local support to learners. Schools are best placed to support individual learners to catch up on their learning and have the best chance to demonstrate their potential. Our teachers have continued to work tirelessly throughout these challenging times to deliver for their learners, and I offer my heartfelt thanks to them and all the staff in our schools. To complement and enhance school-based support, Education Scotland continued to provide support for young people studying for qualifications through the national e-learning offer. Every learner in Scotland from ages 3 to 18 is able to access the national e-learning offer through the youth of Glow, our national schools internet, senior phase learners are accessing e-school support study webinars and resources. The e-school senior phase Easter study support programme last year was extremely popular and will be repeated this year, offering live webinars, covering more than 60 courses at a range of levels from national 4 to advanced higher. Building on existing provision, learners are also able to attend online evening revision classes in a range of courses throughout the term. Learners from all 32 local authorities have engaged with this study support. Measures are also being taken to target and engaged with groups of learners for this support, and additionally, e-school will be offering specialised targeted study support, being a referral from their headteacher for those young people who are considered to have been most impacted by Covid. Learners from all 32 local authorities have accessed over 1,850 west online school videos to support senior phase learning via Glow on their own local platforms. Over 21,000 unique users have already accessed those videos. To complement that, learners are also accessing developing the Young Workforce Live webinars and resources with over 40 different courses to choose from with over 16,000 learner attendancies to date. Working as part of the regional teams at Education Scotland, attainment advisers will continue to provide bespoke support to each local authority and in partnership with local authority officers to individual schools and clusters of schools. The support provided includes helping practitioners to make effective use of data and evidence to identify where young people require support and identify the actions that will have most impact. Each year, many schools provide easter study support provision to help learners preparing for their exams. Findings from an informal audit by Audit Scotland established that while some local authorities had a well-established offer, other local authorities chose not to deliver easter sessions. In October last year, I committed to boosting in-person easter study support provision. Scottish Government officials have been working with local government and others to agree distribution of a £4 million funding to increase support where appropriate, particularly from those from the most deprived backgrounds. It is anticipated that that funding will allow schools and colleges, or local authorities, through authority-wide initiatives, to offer targeted sessions for learners over the Easter break. Where an existing easter study offer already exists, that funding could allow schools or colleges to broaden that existing officer for targeted learners or, through promotion, encourage learners to attend existing sessions. In conclusion, the package of measures and support is designed to ensure that our learners are fully supported in their learning and preparations for the exams this year to help them to achieve and demonstrate their full potential and to have that recognised in their grades on the 9th of August. I hope that colleagues across Parliament can come together to welcome those measures and to recognise that that work confirms a very clear intention that exams will go ahead as planned. Thank you very much indeed, cabinet secretary. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will need to move to the next item of business that will be helpful as ever if members who wish to ask a question could press the request-to-speak buttons or place an R in the chat function, and I call Megan Gallagher. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Two weeks ago, the Scottish Conservatives called for this Government to commit to the 2022 examination diet to go ahead in full. Despite warm words from the cabinet secretary today, we are no further forward. Those plans are too little, too late. The Scottish Government is setting out its contingencies without releasing the equality in children's rights assessment, so that this can be fully scrutinised by Parliament. Recent reports have outlined that 80 per cent of pupils still do not have a digital device, despite the Scottish Government outlining its online support plans. In addition, many will feel that starting revision support in March will be far too late, especially for those who are catching up on lost schooling. Cabinet secretary, the Scottish Government has had two years to get this right, and we are heading for yet another disaster. Pupils and teachers deserve better than what is being offered today. Will the cabinet secretary release the impact assessment this afternoon? Ask the SQA to bring forward the revision support to start this sooner, and lastly, when will our young people finally receive their digital device, or is yet another broken promise by the Scottish National Party Government? I feel that we are having a bit of a groundhog day going around some of the discussions that we had last time. At the end of the Conservative debate, I am going to quote again from Sharon Dowie. I know that Mr Kerr did not like this when the First Minister said it, but I think that this is very important because it testifies where we are at. The safety of our children is the most paramount thing. Surely the member agrees, co-cab sure asked Sharon Dowie. No, I do not agree. That, I am afraid, is where we are at with this. It is shameful that she said that. It is our firm intention, of course, that exams will go ahead. Just like every single other member in the UK, we have a contingency if public health guidance does not allow for gatherings to take place. England, Wales and Northern Ireland have exactly the same contingency in place, but it is our firm intention that exams will go ahead. There is a very important reason why this has been discussed with the national qualifications group around the material that will be made available now and what will be made available in early March. That is to ensure that there is not a narrowing of learning and teaching that will negatively impact learners' breadth of course knowledge and understanding and will impact on the next steps of their learning. It is important at this stage that the learning will continue, but absolutely as we move closer to the revision phase, the full information will be made available to learners and to centres. As I said, there is also very ample information being published by the SQA today on the revision support. Michael Marra joins us remotely. The Labour benches send our best wishes to young people and staff who have been dealing with three years of unimaginable disruption. There is much to welcome in this statement, extraordinarily late, though it is. The cabinet secretary has finally listened to Labour demands for an appeal system that is free, takes into account exceptional circumstances and is based on no detriment. We set this position out last year and once again in Parliament just two weeks ago and that was rejected by the Government at that time. But the position that the Government took on appeals for the last two years is now untenable. There must be redress for the Government's errors. The statement also raises a number of questions. Will the appeals process be a right of direct appeal for pupils? Why must pupils and teachers wait an entire month from now for the guidance and support? On what needs assessed basis will Easter support money be allocated and what is the rationale behind the figure? Everything in this statement is dealing with the fact that young people have lost incredible amounts of learning during the course of the pandemic and continue to do so. That has to be addressed somewhere within our education system. It is unfathomable that the Government refuses to conduct serious research to measure the impact of lost learning and to develop a plan with the resources that match the scale of the challenge. Will the cabinet secretary now commit to doing so? There are a number of points here and I will try to get through them all, but there was a direct and free appeal last year to learners. If it was not clear in my statement, I will absolutely be happy to clarify to Michael Marra that the direct and free appeal is there this year as well. I responded about what the information that is being made available by the SQA is now in relation to revision support and early March and why that was. For the benefit of time, I will not go through that again. On the Easter support, that has been worked with our colleagues in COSLA. It was finally agreed COSLA leaders last week, hence our ability to announce that this week. The details of how much we will be going to each local authority has not yet been determined, but I am happy to provide that to Mr Marra and to other members when that is available. The impact on learners has been made very clear, for example in the most recent AFL stats that have come out that have been discussed in Parliament already. Government will keep a very close eye on that as we continue to collect data on that. It is understandable that students and staff may be anxious about exams and need assurances that the process will be fair and see the results awarded that are reflective of their hard work. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary what extra steps the SQA has taken to ensure that the appeals process takes account of the disruption that has been caused to learners. Of course, there have been many other modifications that have also been made before we get to the appeals part of the process in terms of coursework and revision support, but when it comes to appeal, I think that the approach goes further than in recent pre-pandemic years. It builds on the approach that has been undertaken historically, but as well as, as I said in my opening statement, conducting a clerical check on exam script, SQA appointees will review that alternative assessment evidence that learners have completed through that year, and that would be the same evidence that is used in the exam exceptional circumstances. That is a very important reassurance that I hope that we can give to learners that the SQA has looked very seriously at this and has consulted widely with the national qualifications 22 group on what more could be done. I think that that does account for the disruption caused to learners during the appeals process. Given the possibility that a large number of pupils that are normal will be subject to the exceptional circumstances approach, can the cabinet secretary confirm that pupils who are forced to miss exams due to Covid will not be subject to the same unfair grading system that has failed pupils in the past two years in a row? Set out in my statement, the exceptional circumstances service will be available to learners that have missed their exam, including during Covid. There is an established SQA process for this, but this year the centre will provide appropriate assessment evidence that has been gathered during the year, and that will be assessed against the national standard and awarded with the appropriate grade. James Dornan, who joins us remotely to be followed by Martin Macleod. I welcome the cabinet secretary's statement, particularly the fact that the SQA will recognise the disruption caused to learners in its approach to grading exams this year. Can the cabinet secretary reiterate her comment for the assurance of those learners that the results will be based on the results of their hard work and not on historical data or an algorithm? I can confirm that awarding meetings will take place for each individual subject after the exam has been held to ensure the standard and level of demand of the assessment at each grade boundary is appropriate. The panel of subject experts that will do that are teachers and lecturers, practicing teachers and lecturers. There is a recognition that learners have faced disruption over this year, but it is absolutely clear that, as I said in the statement, that this is based on national data. We will not consider individual local authority centre on individual learner data, and there will be no algorithms that will be applied as part of that process in Scotland. I am grateful, Presiding Officer. It is a shame that, five minutes before the cabinet secretary rose to her feet, the statement was indeed being discussed on the internet following an SQA press release, but, to turn to the statement for which I thank the cabinet secretary, much discussion has been had about the data that has been used to reach this decision within the SQA. Could the cabinet secretary confirm that the data that has been used will be identified and published and the rationale that the SQA has reached to change their position, my apologies, from only two weeks ago, was arrived at? As the member is aware, SQA is independent from Government, and I am certainly not responsible for the timing of SQA press releases that they go up on their website, but I note his comment on that. The rationale for all of the decisions has been one that has been went through with the national qualifications 22 group in great detail. There has been a great deal of discussion with stakeholders. There have been varying views on some parts of this as we have went through the process, but I hope that the chamber will agree that the SQA has recognised the disruption to learning and has acted accordingly. Of course, the rationale behind that has been set out for their discussions around teacher and pupil absences. However, also, the direct feedback that has come from pupils representatives and parents representatives and from the teaching unions on the national qualifications group about the disruption to learning so that, even if schools have remained open, they have been cognisant of that direct feedback about the impact, as well as looking specifically at the data. I hope that that gives Mr Woutpool some reassurances about the rationale behind the decisions. Emma Harper has taken the decision to move to scenario 2, providing support to learners to aid them with a preparation for exams, with full details provided in early March. Can the cabinet secretary outline what learners can expect in March? As I mentioned in my statement, there have been already significant modifications to courses and assessments that have been made by the SQA to take account of disruption for learning. The revision support will complement those modifications, but it will, of course, vary across subjects and levels. In some courses, for example, the SQA will advise learners which topics or context or content will or will not be assessed in the exam to allow learners to focus their revision on what will be there. For some courses, this additional information has already been provided. For other courses, the SQA will provide study guides with hints and tips to help learners to prepare for their exams. A small number of courses will have study guides that learners can take into the exam where appropriate, but full details for this and for how it will impact on each topic at each level will be provided on the SQA website. The education secretary has been slow footed on moving to scenario 2, which has been abundantly clear, was necessary for weeks. As some pupils have had their learning repeatedly and excessively disrupted, why on earth do they have to wait until March to find out what the guidance is for the exams? The decision to move to scenario 2 was one for the SQA. The board met at the end of last week and the decision has been announced this week with my statement to Parliament and obviously the SQA's publicity with two centres as well. It is very important that the SQA has went around this with due consideration of the data and very importantly with the consideration and discussion with stakeholders. That is exactly what members in the past have asked for. The Scottish Government has already announced an enhanced Easter study support offer for learners, especially important for those from deprived backgrounds, as well as a specific £4 million cash commitment. Families in my constituency will be keen to know what that will entail as early as possible. What more information can the cabinet secretary provide at this stage? My apologies, Presiding Officer. Mr Doris was remarkably quiet unusually during that, but I think that I got the gist of the question around Easter study. Of course, what will be delivered is for local authorities. As I mentioned during my statement, many local authorities already have a well-established Easter support provision. Others perhaps will look to enhance that in different ways. I am sure that each council will be able to deliver further details on that to members of the Scottish Parliament. As they can now work up their proposals on that, now that the decision has been made through COSLA and announced by the Scottish Government, I hope that that will ensure that greater support will be provided to many people, particularly from those from the deprived backgrounds, those with additional support needs or, indeed, those who have suffered particularly difficult times during this year because of Covid-19. The improvements to the appeals process in particular bring this year's system far closer to respecting the rights of young people than in previous years. I certainly welcome that. What options for appeal will be for the young people who have been unable to complete 100 per cent of the coursework that is being required at present by the SQA? As I said in my statement, if an individual would like to go forward for an appeal, of course, they are encouraged to discuss that with their centre in the first instance, but it is a direct appeal that they can make. The evidence that has been built over that year can then be given to the SQA to be looked at. There are not specific requirements as part of that appeal process. The evidence that has been gathered will be what can go in for that. I hope that that gives Mr Greer some reassurance around that point that we are keen—the SQA is keen—to make that as flexible as can be possibly made. I spoke to a teacher recently who informed me that one out of 10 pupils in that school had been referred to CAMHS with uncertainty over exams being a significant factor. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that the continuing uncertainty from the Scottish Government is affecting the health of our children and what can the Scottish Government do to support pupils trying to take exams under the cloud of poor mental health? Certainly, it is the Government's firm intention that exams will go ahead this year. That is exactly what the whole education system is working towards. The statement went into great detail into what is being provided by the SQA, Education Scotland and other parts of the education system. The additional investment and support that has gone in to supporting young people, for example, through councillors in every secondary school, and the additional support that has gone in to CAMHS, given the particular impact that the pandemic has had on young people. I welcome that the SQA will provide additional study support for learners in March. Can the cabinet secretary please outline how that will complement the wider support package that has been put in place, including coursework assessment modifications and online learning resources? The member raises a very important point that, although much of the statement was focused on the SQA and much of the coverages about what happens in the SQA, there is a great deal of work that is going on in other parts of the education system to support our young people. I have mentioned, again, the work from the e-school, the west online school and others. Of course, the work that goes on day and week out from our schools and local authorities to support our young people. That, together, is a sound package to support young people at this very difficult time. There is nothing in the statement about securing additional appropriate settings for exams. If distancing is going to be an on-going concern, what is the cabinet secretary doing to see that additional space is available to allow exam conditions to be satisfied in a controlled and managed way? There is nothing in the statement because this has been discussed at length in the national qualifications 22 group. It has not been deemed as our stakeholders as an issue of concern, given the distancing measures that are in place during the exam setting. Of course, the SQA will continue to have those discussions with stakeholders, and if stakeholders see that as an area of concern, they would act on that. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes the statement. It is time to move on.