25 February 2025: The Scottish Government has published its latest summary statistics for attainment and initial leaver destinations for school leavers in 2023-24.

This publication contains the latest statistics on Scottish school pupils’ initial destinations (their destination three months after the end of the school year) and their attainment during their time at school.

The statistics show that:

• 95.7 per cent of 2023-24 school leavers were in a positive initial destination. This is a small decrease from 2022-23 (95.9 per cent) and the second highest figure (alongside 2021-22) since consistent records began in 2009-10.
• The gap in positive initial destinations between leavers from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland was 4.3 percentage points. This has widened since 2022-23 when the gap was 3.7 percentage points.
• In 2023-24, under the National Qualifications measure, 83.5 per cent of school leavers left with one pass or more at SCQF Level 5 or better (down from 84.8 per cent in 2022-23) and 57.4 per cent of school leavers left with one pass or more at SCQF Level 6 or better (down from 57.9 per cent in 2022-23).
• In 2023-24, under the All SCQF measure, 87.4 per cent of school leavers left with one pass or more at SCQF Level 5 or better (down from 87.9 per cent in 2022-23) and 66.5 per cent of school leavers left with one pass or more at SCQF Level 6 or better (up from 65.6 per cent in 2022-23).

The full publication is available on the Scottish Government website.