Regarding the difficulty of qualifications, does it really matter? Education = Education. We can't assume that the Scottish Standard is better than the English Standard, through the comparison of one variable. Although, we are discussing the difficulty of the National 5 compared with GCSEs, its wholey down to subjectiveness, and using statistics can provide an unreliable perspective towards this. Primarily because statistics can be influenced by multiple factors... Britain does have much better schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, Radley, Leicester Grammar, Tonbridge, Uppingham and etc...