When it comes to education, anyone can see that 2025 was yet another bruising year for the SNP and Scottish Government. A decade ago we were told to judge them on their record for improving schools, and the result of that type of analysis is now depressingly predictable: another year, another record of failure.

Even the apparent successes were questionable at best. You may, for example, have seen SNP members on social media claiming that literacy and numeracy rates are now at a ‘record’ high, which is just about true, but only because the party changed the measurement system to suit themselves a few years ago. Even then, progress has been spectacularly slow: less than half a percentage point per year taken out of the attainment gap, at a combined cost (so far) of approaching £2billion.

But however bad things got for government spin doctors and overpaid political advisers, it was even worse for those who actually had to get on with the real job of educating people.

Unfortunately, the coming months don’t look like getting any better.

The rebrand of the SQA is due to be completed, which means we get to pay for all the fresh paint while all the same people do all the same jobs, presumably with the same degree of competence that has been on display in recent years. But hey, they’ll get to do it with some new letterheads and email addresses, and that........

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