Whether it will publish school examination results for each school this year.

TheExecutive has consistently made clear that it is committed to widening accessto information on schools and to making that information more meaningful. Our partnershipagreement makes it clear that we will "promote improved assessment ofindividual schools’ progress as a better measure than national leaguetables". I want parents, pupils and communities to know about theperformance of their local schools, and the information available to go muchwider than just exam results.
Through the school improvement framework introduced bythe Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000, weare establishing evidence of performance across all five national priorities ineducation. Exam results are one part of that evidence. Schools and educationauthorities have that information to assess schools’ progress in detail, and toinform their own plans to deliver improvements in education for pupils. The Executivereviews that information to assess progress and inform future policydevelopment.
I am concluding plans to publish baseline information oneach local authority across all of the national priorities. This will be themost comprehensive description of performance at the local authority level, andwill allow comparisons over time of progress against a wide range ofindicators. It draws on and complements the wide range of information currentlyavailable on performance of the school education system.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority makes availablenational exam result pass rates annually and reports from principal examinerson performance and standards.
Information on the performance of each school and localauthority is available from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education reportsfollowing inspection. The inspection reports on aspects of the performance of the education system are also published.
Reports of international comparative studies ofperformance in which Scotlandparticipates are published, the results ofwhich are included in reports such as Education at a Glance.
We are consulting currently on how to improve the annualreports parents receive about the progress and performance of their child.
We are also consulting on strengthening our monitoringof 5-14 achievement through a new Scottish survey of achievement to build onand extend the current assessment of achievement programme and to move awayfrom the collection of national test data for this purpose.
Statistical publications give a range of information,including exam results, attendance and absence and school leaver destinations.
We need to share key aspects of this wealth ofinformation with parents effectively. I am concluding arrangements for thepublication of school level exam results in a new format linked to otherrelevant information available at school level. I am also considering how bestto draw together the other sources of information for parents. This willcomplement information already available locally to parents through schoolhandbooks and reports published by education authorities, and make it easilyaccessible to all with an interest.
I will advise Parliament in due course of the details ofthose arrangements, and how we plan to use a website as part of that approach.We aim to have in place the arrangements by mid-December. This will mean thatschool level data on a range of issues is available when school handbooks arepublished. In the meantime, in early November, exam result figures at thenational and education authority level will be published.
Takentogether, our commitments represent a comprehensive approach to extendingaccess to all available data, including exam results. They move decisively awayfrom simplistic comparisons of school performance using only exam resultstowards a rigorous but better balanced overall approach to the evaluation ofschool performance in Scotland.