Thousands of anxious pupils got blank results email

The number of pupils achieving an A, B or C grade at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher was down across the board.

The Higher A-C attainment dropped from 77.1% in 2023 to 74.9%, while the A-C attainment for National 5 exams fell from 78.8% in 2023 to 77.2%.

The biggest drop in A-C grades came from Advanced Highers, which fell from 79.8% in 2023 to 75.3%.

The SQA noted that there had been different approaches to awarding in each year since 2019 which did not allow for “meaningful conclusions to be drawn on changes in education performance”.

The attainment gap between exam results for those in the richest and poorest parts of Scotland also increased when compared to last year and to pre-pandemic levels.

The Higher pass rate for pupils from the most affluent areas was 82%, compared to 65% for those from the poorest backgrounds.

The attainment gap at Higher level for A to C grades was 17.2 percentage points, up from 16 last year and 16.9 in 2019.

For National 5s the attainment gap is 17.2 percentage points, up from 15.6 last year and frim 17 points in 2019.

For Advanced Highers the attainment gap is at 15.5 percentage points, up from 11.5 last year and 13.2 in 2019.