About 17,000 pupils across Tayside and Fife are about to face the nail-biting challenge of exams.
The annual ritual gets under way today, with standard grade PE and intermediates in music, and will carry on through May and into mid-June.
More than 160,000 candidates in Scotland’s schools and colleges are expected to sit almost three-quarters of a million tests before they face the long wait for their results in August.
Dr Janet Brown, chief executive of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, said, “Good qualifications are probably more important today than they have ever been.
“Our qualifications genuinely capture and reflect our candidates’ skills and provide for them a pathway to the workplace or further study. I send my very best wishes to the thousands of learners who are embarking upon the next big step in their lives.”
This year will see the first pupils complete the new Scottish baccalaureates in sciences and languages. These combine Highers and Advanced Highers with an interdisciplinary project.
Only 143 pupils have signed up for them, with Dundee at the forefront in the uptake. In January, it was confirmed that 27 city pupils were due to take the sciences course.
This year will also see the SQA making more use of technology to help pupils cope with the battery of exams they face.
An application for mobile phones will help pupils build an exam timetable so they know at a glance what and when they are sitting. It also provides information to help them prepare based on the SQA’s exam guide.
Pupils will also be able to sign up to a service that will send them their results by text or email a day early, rather than having to wait for their certificates to arrive in the post on August 5.
Those results will only be ready after 15,000 examiners have marked nearly two million test papers.
The SQA has been closely monitoring the fallout from the flight cancellations caused by the ash cloud from Iceland. It has plans in place to ensure that any candidates who are still stuck abroad will not be adversely affected.
Image used under Creative Commons licensing from Flickr user jackhynes.