PASS rates have fallen as the class divide in Scottish educational attainment is at its highest on record — nearly a decade after former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called its eradication her “defining mission.”

Ms Sturgeon set the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) in 2015, but Scotland’s poverty-related attainment gap now stands at 17.2 per cent at both Nat 5 and Higher levels, and 15.5 per cent at Advanced Higher, up on the 2019 pre-Covid class divides of 17, 16.9 and 13.2 per cent respectively.

She had appointed First Minister John Swinney as education secretary in 2016 to drive the policy.

But the gap only fell briefly during Covid when lockdowns forced the SQA to abandon end-of-year exams, instead relying on coursework and teacher estimates to produce grades.

Scottish Greens’ education spokesman Ross Greer said: “High stakes end of term exams are not, and never have been, an accurate way of measuring a young person’s knowledge or abilities.

“It is deeply unfair that a pupil who has excelled all year can have their future irreversibly altered by a bout of illness, anxiety or lack of sleep the night before due to a chaotic home life.”

Pass rates for those gaining A to C in Nat 5s now stands at 77.2 per cent, at Higher 74.9 per cent and Advanced Higher at 75.3 per cent, compared with 78.8, 77.1, and 79.8 per cent respectively last year.

Acknowledging “some variability in the national attainment picture,” Scottish Qualitfications Authority (SQA) chief executive Fiona Robertson said it amounted to a “solid set of results.”

The SQA itself came under fire on today, however, as thousands of students expecting results received empty emails causing widespread confusion and alarm.

Scottish Labour education spokeswoman Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “Young people across Scotland should have woken up this morning to exciting news – instead they have woken up to a new level of SQA chaos.

“The results speak for themselves – the poverty-related attainment gap is at its highest ever level, while attainment has also fallen for all.”

Scottish Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said: ”Like countries the world over, our education system is still in recovery from the pandemic.

“Undoubtedly, that has contributed to some of the variability we have seen in results this year, particularly with the full return to qualifications requirements for the first time since the pandemic.”