Politics
Politics sees the study of important political concepts and ideologies, the comparison of different political systems, and the evaluation of factors that impact on the electoral performance of political parties.
Candidates develop knowledge and understanding of key political concepts. The theoretical perspective of the course enables candidates to identify, explore and analyse political issues in order to develop their own views and perspectives. Candidates develop analysing and evaluating skills during the course which help them to interpret and understand political issues.
02-FEB-2026
On 1 February 2026, Qualifications Scotland replaced SQA and became Scotland’s new national awarding body. The documents on this page remain current and you can continue to use them. We’ll update them in the style of Qualifications Scotland when they’re next due for review.
03-JUN-2026
We've made some changes to the Higher Politics course assessment, following feedback from educators and learners:
- We've increased the duration of question paper 2 by 15 minutes – from 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes.
- In the course specification, we've updated the description of content in 'section 3: political parties and elections' to reflect that candidates can choose from any political party with representation in the Scottish or UK Parliament.
We’ve amended the question paper details in the course specification. There's no change to teaching and learning. Please inform learners of these changes and update your assessments (for example, prelims).
These changes are part of ongoing improvements to assessment in some of our current National Courses, based on feedback from educators and learners. Our high-level summary table gives an overview of these changes.
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Where can you take this course?