The boss of the Highland college where the entire media studies class failed their course yesterday took the unprecedented step of phoning every student to apologise.
The Press and Journal revealed this week that 20 students sitting the higher media course at Inverness College UHI all received “no award” grades for their higher media course.
Yesterday the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) said it was “happy” that the assessment had “performed as intended” – while the college has asked the exam board to investigate.
But yesterday, chief executive and chancellor Diane Rawlinson spoke to furious parents and upset students who now claim they are left in limbo and unable to make decisions about their future education and careers.
The father of one of the students has now taken up the case in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mass failure.
Louise Duncan, 17, made monthly trips from her home in Arisaig, near Mallaig, to attend classes in Inverness.
The course is delivered long distance, with students using online resources to work their way towards a final portfolio submission of material and an exam.
She had been given praise throughout the year of studies – and her father Rory said she had been told before submission that her final video project was “exceptional”.
She has already received an offer to study at Queen Margaret University in Ednburgh – but classmates have been left “in limbo” while they await the outcome of an appeal.
In an unprecedented move, the Duncans and others involved all received personal phone calls from college chief Ms Rawlinson yesterday afternoon.
Mr Duncan said: “I appreciated the phone call from her and she was very candid.
“I told her that we have been on the case from Tuesday as soon as the results came out and she said she wished she had been personally involved sooner.”
He added: “Louise is one of the lucky ones because she had an offer based on the highers she already had but some were waiting on the media results to find out if they could get to university.
“They need to do everything they can to work out what has happened.”
After the results were published Mr Duncan discovered a review of the course carried out by the SQA in May this year which raised concerns about “lack of clarity” around key requirements of the course and consistency in assessing one of the modules.
However, yesterday a spokesman for the SQA said: “We are happy that the 2016 Higher Media assessment performed as intended and it provided candidates with the opportunity to show their understanding of the subject.
“Many candidates performed strongly and we saw a slight increase in the A-C attainment rate compared to the same qualification last year.
“It was designed in line with past and exemplar papers and according to our course and assessment specifications.”
