NPA Attainment at SCQF Level 6

2025-05-13

Context

This analysis asks:
Does NPA participation at SCQF Level 6 vary systematically with deprivation?

Deprivation proxy: SIMD education deprivation rank

Time period: 2019-2025

Table 1. Six EAs selected as three geographic pairs. shown in order if SIMD rank
Education authority SIMD Rank
W Dunbartonshire 1
Glasgow City 2
Aberdeen City 16
City of Edinburgh 19
E Dunbartonshire 24
Aberdeenshire 30

Data & Methodology

Three-step subject selection from 74 NPA subjects at SCQF Level 6

  1. Comparability filter - retained only subjects with non-zero, non-suppressed awards in all 6 EAs in 2025 -> 29 subjects

  2. Volume threshold - dropped subjects with fewer than 100 total awards across the 6 EAs in 2025 -> 9 subjects

  3. Variation + breadth - selected three subjects with total and high IQR, covering distinct thematic areas -> 3 final subjects

All counts are raw and unweighted by school-age population. Comparisons are made primarily within each EA’s own time trend.

NPA Subject Selection

Table 2. Three subject selected for regional comparison based on volume, variability, and breadth of topic

NPA SCQF Level 6 Subject Selection
Total awards for 2025 across 6 selected Education Authorities
Subject Total Awards IQR
Business with Information Technology 480 62.50
Exercise and Fitness Leadership 480 35.00
Sports Development 4251 76.25
Criminology 370 93.75
Computer Games Development 155 40.00
Journalism 155 21.25
Legal Studies 150 30.00
Film and Media 115 16.25
Achieving Excellence in Sport 100 10.00
1 Sports Development passed over in favour of topic breadth.

Finding 1: Overall Participation

Figure 1. NPAs awards have increased makedly across almost all EAs. SIMD rankings are shown in parentheses

Finding 1: Take-away

Consistent with deprivation gradient

  • W Dunbartonshire (rank 1) flatlines - 65 awards in 2025
  • E Dunbartonshire (rank 24) reaches 375 - roughly 6× higher

Complicating the narrative

  • Glasgow (rank 2) shows the strongest growth of any EA
  • Aberdeenshire (rank 30) consistently high throughout
  • Aberdeen City (rank 16) outperforms Aberdeenshire in some years
  • Deprivation rank alone does not predict NPA participation
  • but West Dunbartonshire is a clear and persistent equity concern

Finding 2: Subject-Level Patterns

Figure 2. W Dumbarton consistently underwhelms. Glasgow (SIMD 2) has made exciting improvements in the last 3 years.

Finding 2: Three Stories

Business with IT

Glasgow: 15 -> 180 (12 fold increase) West Dunbartonshire: near-zero throughout

The fastest-growing subject has the largest equity gap

Criminology

Edinburgh: zero across all 7 years
Aberdeenshire & Glasgow lead at 125
W Dunbartonshire: modest but present from 2022

Subject access, not just deprivation, shapes the picture

Exercise & Fitness Leadership

Edinburgh dominates at 185
Glasgow (90), Aberdeen City (80)
W Dunbartonshire: max 15

Edinburgh’s strength here contrasts with its weakness in Criminology

Implications & Questions

West Dunbartonshire as a structural concern

  • consistent flatline across all subjects and all years suggests a barrier beyond curriculum choice: centre capacity, staffing, awareness?

Glasgow as a case-study?

  • strong growth despite high deprivation.
  • What drove the Business with IT surge?
  • Could it inform support for other high-deprivation authorities?

Edinburgh’s Criminology gap

  • zero participation in a growing subject for 7 years.
  • Deliberate curriculum choice, delivery constraint, or data anomaly?

The 2022 inflection

  • sharp growth across multiple subjects and EAs from 2022. Post-pandemic recovery
  • But unevenly distributed.
  • The rebound has not reached all learners equally.

Future Analysis

To strengthen the equity argument

  • Normalise by school-age population or chohort size
  • Link to centre-level data - are NPAs offered but not completing, or not offered at all?
  • Extend to other SCQF levels - do patterns hold beyond Level 6?

Summary

What the data shows:
West Dunbartonshire show a clear and persistent equity concern
Consistent across subjects and years.

What it raises:
Understanding the drivers behind both the successes and the gaps is essential if qualifications are to be relevant, inclusive and fit for all learners.

NPA participation at SCQF Level 6 has grown substantially since 2019 - but that growth is unevenly distributed in ways that correlate only partially with deprivation.

Thank you - happy to take questions.

Tools used

This analysis was built using

  • R (tidyverse, ggplot2, gt)
  • Quarto for reproducible reporting
  • SIMD education deprivation rankings
  • Qualifications Scotland published statistics