Leader: SQA fails yet another test

A relatively small error it may be, affecting some 34 students, but the apology the Scottish Qualifications Authority has had to issue for sending out the wrong results to pupils who recently sat their religious, moral and philosophical studies exams is another embarrassment for the accident-prone quango.

Only last week the SQA caused chaos and alarm for thousands of pupils by sending out their Higher results by text a day early, raising further questions over the competence of a body which a decade ago sent nearly 17,000 exam candidates either incomplete certificates, marks for exams they had not sat, or no results at all.

No organisation is perfect, but the SQA is charged with one of the most important of all tasks in the public sector, the smooth administration of exams upon which our young people depend. The results have to be accurate as they play such a large part in determining students' futures. We have a right, therefore, to expect the highest standards from the SQA, and it is unfortunate, to say the least, that it has again fallen short.

In the light of these events, the problem for the SQA is people will call into question other aspects of its operations. How can we be confident, for example, that the controversial decision to scrap exam appeals, which pupils have used successfully to challenge grades, has been made merely to save money and is not a way of glossing over further SQA mistakes?

The public need to be reassured. The SQA has a lot of reassuring to do.