SNP are not up to the job of education - Alex Cole-Hamilton

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth celebrates with students at Madras College in St Andrews on SQA results Day 2024. PIC: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

I still remember the desolation I felt on that busy French street. All my plans seemed to be in tatters and all for the want of an economics exam that I’d crammed furiously for, but on all the wrong topics. As it was, my destiny took me to the University of Aberdeen. Had that phone call from Biarritz gone differently, I wouldn’t have met my wife and I doubt I’d be writing this column as an MSP and political party leader right now.

I always feel that memory of anxiety when the exam results drop. More so this year as it was the first time as our eldest had results coming. The fiend had not bothered to sign up for the SQA online results service so we had to wait for the post for his Nat5s, just like the old days. Turns out he’d done us proud.

I wish I could go back to that dusty, bewildered 18-year-old, standing bereft in the French sun and tell him things would work out. I imagine there are thousands of young Scots feeling equally lost this week, but there will be a way forward.

The overall picture for the exam results is a worry though. The pass rate is dropping but even more troublingly, the gap between young people from affluent areas and deprived areas is increasing.Between these two groups of pupils, the attainment gap - the difference in the percentage of students obtaining a C grade pass or higher - in both Nat5s and Highers is just over 17 per cent. That’s the highest it has ever been.

This was supposed to be the SNP’s defining mission, and one that Nicola Sturgeon specifically tasked John Swinney with overseeing but that baked-in disadvantage kids from poorer backgrounds face is getting worse.

When I speak with teachers they identify a series of roadblocks to making progress in bringing down the attainment gap. These include in-class behaviour, absence rates, lack of support for pupils with additional support needs and unmanageable workloads.

Add to this the steady erosion of youth work in our communities and the desperate state of child and adolescent mental health services. The landscape in which we are asking young people to sit life qualifying exams looks pretty grim.

All of these problems have been allowed to flourish under the SNP. And remember this was a government that came to power with a promise to reduce class sizes. Something they have never achieved.

It’s hard to believe it, but there is only one more exam results day left before the Scottish Parliamentary elections of 2026. “Judge me on my record on education” said Nicola Sturgeon. While she may have exited the stage of frontline politics, those words will continue to haunt the SNP as the electoral clock counts down.

At the heart of this learning slump lies the same ministerial disinterest that has hobbled the effective delivery of public service for the whole of the 17 years the SNP have been in power. The young people getting their results last week have only known SNP rule and they have been utterly failed.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​