EVEN in normal circumstances the day that letter containing your exam results drops onto the door mat, or the text message pings into your inbox, is a harrowing one for young people – this year doubly so.

The coronavirus pandemic struck just as pupils were gearing up for their exam season and suddenly the future looked uncertain.

The decision not to press ahead with traditional exams was the right one.

Neither pupil nor staff safety could be guaranteed in the current circumstances.

But what replaced that system has dished out an injustice to thousands of young people.

Since exams could not proceed as planned the SQA asked teachers to estimate, based on coursework, prelims and their professional assessment, what grade their pupils should be awarded.

However, the exam body also said there would be a process of “moderation”.

Despite repeated calls from the Greens in Holyrood, the SQA time and time again refused to disclose the exact methodology that would be used in this process.

Time and time again my party colleague and education spokesperson Ross Greer warned the SQA that any moderation based on a schools previous performance would likely disadvantage pupils from poorer areas.

On results day, when it was already too late, he was sadly proven correct. Pupils in Scotland’s most deprived areas saw their pass rates reduced by 15.2 per cent.

Those in the more affluent areas suffered by less than half that amount.

That clear injustice shouldn’t undermine the fact that pupils across Clackmannanshire schools have put in an extraordinary effort in the last academic year with the vast majority passing their Highers.

But in every school there will be pupils who haven’t got the grades they expected, the grades they knew they were capable of if only they’d been given a chance.

Instead their efforts, talents and ambitions have been fed into the SQA’s machines and come out tattered and torn on the other side. The statistics hide the personal side of this debacle.

An enormous amount of damage has already been done and many young people’s faith in the fairness of the system will have been rightly shaken, but it’s not too late for the SQA and the Scottish Government to mitigate some of the worst impact.

Pupils are entitled to appeal the grades they’ve been awarded and the SQA must now commit to adopting a “no detriment” policy similar to that adopted by Scottish universities to ensure their student’s weren’t treated unfairly.

A similar policy for school pupils, which would see them awarded a grade no lower than the result they achieved in their prelim exams would rectify the damage done.

In these uncertain times our young people deserve better than to have their ambitions and dreams dismissed by a formula that punishes them simply on the basis of where they’re from.