Scottish school pupils waiting for their exam results have received emails from the SQA with a blank space where their grades should be.

Many youngsters were sent a text which did include their results, but others did not.

Some pupils also got Ucas responses for university and college applications before they received their exam marks.

SQA chief executive Fiona Robertson apologised to pupils who faced anxious waits.

The number of pupils achieving an A, B or C grade at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher are down across the board.

The Higher A-C attainment has dropped from 77.1% in 2023 to 74.9% this year.

This is also lower than 2022, when the Higher A-C attainment was 78.9%.

The A-C attainment for National 5 exams is also down from 78.8% in 2023 to 77.2%.

But the biggest drop in A-C grades came from Advanced Highers, which fell from 79.8% in 2023 to 75.3%.

The SQA noted that there had been different approaches to awarding in each year since 2019 which did not allow for “meaningful conclusions to be drawn on changes in education performance”.

Dozens of parents and pupils, including some who were on overseas holidays and would not have access to postal votes, voiced frustration with the SQA on social media about blank emails and a wait for texts.

Shortly before 10:00, the SQA said it had resolved a technical issue affecting 7,000 pupils who signed up to receive their results by email only using the MySQA service.

It said only 5% of about 145,000 waiting for results had signed up for the email-only service.

“Emails have been reissued and are making their way to learners,” the SQA posted on X.

The exams body insisted texts had not been impacted and the “vast majority of learners who signed up to MySQA received their results as expected”.

Ms Robertson said the issue had been “resolved swiftly”.

She told a media briefing in Glasgow: “We would like to apologise to the concerns caused to learners this morning.”

Meanwhile, Orkney Islands Council is carrying out an investigation in to why some pupils received their results, by letter, a day early, on Monday.

A number of pupils in the West Mainland appear to have been affected.

The authority has asked the SQA and Royal Mail to look in to how it happened “as a matter of urgency”.

Cameron Falconer, 16, was among those who received a blank email.

He signed up for the email and text service as he knew he would be away from home at a gymnastics training camp in Largs when the results were due to arrive.

Cameron received an email at 08:10 that was blank in the section where his results should be and had not yet received a text.

He said: “It’s making me feel more nervous. When I saw it at first I thought I’d got not qualifications.

“It’s making me feel quite upset to be honest”.

Simon Luxford-Moore, head of learning at Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools in Edinburgh, urged the SQA to fix the email issue affecting pupils.

“The wait is torturous for them,” he added.

Both Moira and Christopher got their National 5 results email more than 90 minutes late.

Christopher, 16, from Aberdeen, did not get an email or text initially.

“It’s been a nerve-wracking day today and as the day went on it became more and more worrying,” he said.

Moira Veenboer, 15, from Edinburgh, initially received an email but it was blank.

She said: “I found out from a lot of my friends that it happened to them too. I’m a bit annoyed, but what’s done is done.”

Both received their results shortly after 09:30 and said they felt “relieved and happy”.