Prior to the year 2000, the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies (CSYS) was the highest level of qualification available to pupils in the Scottish secondary education system.
Overseen by the Scottish Examination Board (SEB), it was taken by students in their sixth year (final year) of secondary education (ages 16-18) and was available for a range of different subjects. Examinations were administered by the SEB (and latterly by its successor, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which replaced it in September 1997). Unlike the Standard and Higher Grade examinations, it was not a part of the Scottish Certificate of Education.
The CSYS followed on from Higher Grade examinations and was considered broadly equivalent to the English A-Level qualification. However, it never quite gained the same level of universal recognition as the Higher or A-Level. In particular, universities rarely used it when considering potential students.
Following plans for extensive reorganisation of the secondary education system in the late 1990s, the CSYS was phased out, starting in the 2000/01 examination year. By 2002/03, it had been completely replaced by its successor, the Advanced Higher.
Famous quotes containing the words certificate, sixth, year and/or studies:
“God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“These studies which stimulate the young, divert the old, are an ornament in prosperity and a refuge and comfort in adversity; they delight us at home, are no impediment in public life, keep us company at night, in our travels, and whenever we retire to the country.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)