DETAILS of the 2023 exam pass rates for Dumfries and Galloway show the region is falling behind in maths.
Just over half of the area’s students (53.5 per cent) passed this year’s National 5 maths exam with an A-C grade, it has emerged. The Scottish average was 62.4 per cent.
And only 19.3 per cent of candidates locally managed to secure an A in the subject.
At Higher level, the picture was only marginally better with 62.3 per achieving an A-C grade, still well below the 73 per cent national average.
And just 26.7 per cent in total were A grades locally.
However, English fared better with a 74.5 per cent pass rate at Higher and 84.4 per cent at National 5.
Dumfries and Galloway Council this week released the overall 2023 exam pass rates, following a request from this paper. Officials pointed out that the results for both qualifications have slightly increased from 2019, although they are down on the last three years when marking systems were changed due to the pandemic.
A council spokesperson said: “The pass rate at National 5 has increased slightly from 2019, notably the number of A passes has increased from 30.4 per cent to 34.5 per cent.
“The pass rate at Higher has slightly increased from 2019, however the number of A passes has increased from 27 per cent to 29 per cent.”
Meanwhile, the statistics show that changes in marking during covid resulted in a rise in passes to 88 per cent in this region in 2020 for National 5 and 90 per cent for Higher.
Dumfries and Galloway Council say they are not yet in a position to share pass rates for individual schools.
