SQA publishes summary of appeal outcomes for National Qualifications in 2024
Tuesday 3 December
Today the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) publishes information regarding the 2024 National Qualification appeal outcomes.
Key Highlights:
- 44,855 (8.1%) of the 552,695 certificated grades for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher were appealed in 2024, a 0.8 percentage point increase from 2023 (7.3%).
- At National 5, 20,615 (6.3%) of the 327,950 certificated grades were appealed. This is an increase from 2023 (5.6%).
- At Higher, 21,980 (11.2%) of the 196,250 certificated grades were appealed. This is an increase from 2023 (10.3%).
- At Advanced Higher, 2,260 (7.9%) of the 28,495 certificated grades were appealed. This is an increase from 2023 (7.0%).
- 7.6% of appeal requests (3,390) resulted in an upgrade in 2024, a decrease from 10.0% in 2023. There were five appeal requests that resulted in a downgrade in 2024.
Appeals 2024 provided learners and centres with the opportunity to review a SQA National Course grade whenever a learner had not achieved the expected result for the SQA-marked assessment components of their course.
Appeals 2024 involved a marking review of a learner’s externally assessed components and checked that all parts of the assessment have been marked, that the marking is in line with the national standards and the marks given for each answer have been totalled correctly, and the correct result was entered on SQA’s system.
This year, learners, their representatives or their centres could submit appeals. However, as grades could go up, down or stay the same, learners had to consent to the appeal before any requests could be submitted by their centre or representative.
Appeals could be prioritised if the learner had a conditional offer at college or university, or if training or employment that depended on their grade.
Learners could apply for an appeal if they had been awarded a final grade based on externally assessed components that were submitted to SQA for marking. Learners were not able to submit an appeal in the following circumstances:
- Where a course award had been cancelled as a penalty due to serious candidate malpractice.
- Where a learner has been certificated at grade A, because a marking review is designed to address situations where the learner expected a higher certificated grade and there is no grade higher than an A. An exception to this rule is where a learner has a conditional offer from university that requires a band A1. These requests should be submitted via the learner’s centre who must then notify SQA of band 1 requests at submission.
- Where an award has been reached using the Examination Exceptional Circumstances Consideration Service. In these cases, a full review of all learner materials will have been undertaken by SQA senior appointees before certification.
Fiona Robertson, SQA’s Chief Executive and Scotland’s Chief Examining Officer, said: ‘The appeals service is an important and final stage of the National Qualifications awarding process and gives learners across the country the opportunity to question an unexpected grade, and for free.
‘As the 2024 awarding process concludes. I would once again like to thank our appointees – experienced teachers and lecturers from across the country - who are essential to qualifications delivery in Scotland. SQA calls upon their expertise throughout the appeals process, and it is thanks to their understanding of national standards we can ensure learners’ achievements are recognised and recorded fairly.’
The Appeals 2024 reports can be found on the Appeals section of the SQA Statistics webpage