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More pupils from Scotland got a university place on exams results day than in any previous year, it has been confirmed. Helen Thorne from UCAS told BBC Radio Scotland that 28,300 Scottish students had successfully secured their courses.

More than 140,000 students north of the border have received their results.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority has sent out scores from National 4 and 5, Higher, Advanced Higher and Scottish Baccalaureate exams.

The Scottish government said the exams had seen "another highly successful set of results", including:

• 152,701 Higher passes, the second highest number on record and 77% of those sat
• 234,160 National 5 passes, 79% of those sitting exams
• 114,635 National 4 passes, 93% of those sat
• More than 43,000 National Certificates, Awards and National Progression Awards in courses such as early education, childcare and computer games development, up 27%
• A 23% increase in National Certificate passes at SCQF level 6 related to work skills, to 4,920

The latest results from the SQA suggested that problems with the 2015 Higher Maths exam have not been repeated. The 2015 pass mark had to be cut to 34% after the exam was deemed too difficult, but the 2016 pass mark was approximately 50%.

Fears that replacing part of the Higher English exam against a tight deadline would lead to problems also proved unfounded, with the pass mark for that subject also 50%.

Pass rates in National 4 and 5 exams were roughly in line with those in 2015, while the percentage of candidates passing their Higher exams dipped slightly from 79.2% to 77.2% - although new Higher exams have been phased in over this period. New Advanced Higher exams were introduced for 2016, with an overall 81.7% pass rate.

Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme, UCAS director Ms Thorne said: "There is really good news, we have got 28,300 Scottish students who have secured a place at university today and that is the highest that we have ever seen on Scottish results day. "So we want to say a big congratulations to all of them and when the UCAS track system opens students will be able to log in and see if they have got their university place."

Ms Thorne also said the number of students from EU countries being accepted to Scottish universities was up 19% to 3,900, saying there was "no evidence of EU students being put off" by the Brexit vote.

The National Union of Students welcomed the "hugely encouraging" figures, while Colleges Scotland said it was "delighted" with the results.

Source: BBC Scotland
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