Education Committee, 03 Sep 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Official Report 183KB pdf

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Work Programme

The final item is the work programme. In large measure, the programme results from discussions that the committee had at its away day, when we tried to anticipate and fit together matters such as subordinate legislation and the requirements of the Executive. The work programme document has been produced by the clerks in the light of those discussions.

Perhaps Martin Verity will update us on one point. In paragraph 5, the document refers to the civic participation event that the committee is keen to organise, particularly in the light of the sensitive draft Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill.

A bid would need to go to the Conveners Group. We hope to draft a paper of proposals that could go to the Conveners Group after it is examined by the committee next week.

We are trying to resolve technical difficulties, but the committee is keen to organise the event in reasonable time so that we can make use of it in the context of considering the bill.

Is there any disagreement with the content of the paper? Have you any thoughts about it, Rosemary? I am conscious that you were not at the away day.

At some point, we need a progress report on the implementation of the McCrone recommendations, which have implications for the draft bill—both in relation to mainstream education and the wider implications in education. It would be useful to know whether the time scales are being met and how the job-sizing exercise impacts on staffing.

It is a big issue upon which the committee touched in its discussions at the away day. We were of the view that, at a suitable point, we would want to consider how successful McCrone is and whether there are any problems to address. We do not know whether this is the right time to do that. You mentioned the link to the bill. I would appreciate other thoughts about that. We have problems with doing anything lengthy at this point.

In the initial stage, we could ask the Executive to give us a written report on progress to date. We could then consider what we have to do after that.

My only slight concern about that is whether a brief report—or even a lengthy report—would be suitable for the subject. Elements of assessment, where we are going and what problems are emerging would be involved. I wonder whether we could get all that together readily at this point.

We must anticipate the time scale for the roll-out of McCrone. We have a duty and a responsibility to take stock of McCrone. That could take place in the spring—somewhere between January and April might be an appropriate time. It would not be amiss to discuss with the Executive when it expects to be in place certain parts of the programme about which it could reasonably give us a progress report. I have another point to make on the generalities of the paper.

It might be sensible to ask the Executive at official level what it is doing to monitor and assess McCrone and to respond to that at a future meeting, with a view to examining the matter later in more detail.

It should fit into the key priorities as you suggest.

My other point is on curriculum issues 9 and 10, which we discussed at length at the away day. I understand that the Executive will initiate continuing discussion about the three to 18 curriculum in the coming year. We have our national priorities and we have had the national education debate. We have a duty to monitor what will happen as far as the Executive is concerned, but at the same time—this point is not in the paper and I have given a suggested form of wording to the clerks—we should engage in parallel thinking about the longer-term implications of the shape of education and a suitable curriculum for the next 10 to 20 years.

That is right; the committee took the view that we should take a dual-track approach to all of that. Perhaps the report of the meeting could take that on board.

When I was looking at the timetable, one thing that struck me was that although the bill is not coming out until the end of October or thereabouts, we are a little bit thin on the number of detailed meetings we can have about it between now and then. There are things that we have to do over the forthcoming weeks and there must be committee meetings to accommodate them. For various reasons to do with budget timetables we cannot readily squash all those meetings into one. However, there might be scope for one of the September meetings to include an evidence-hearing session of some other kind.

I am quite anxious to give a bit of attention to the young people agenda. I wonder whether members might be interested in doing a panel session to get thoughts and contributions from uniformed organisations and the informal youth sector about their approach, their problems, their contribution and how they relate to mainstream education. It would not be intended as an inquiry, but would be intended to give the committee a bit of information on, and flavour of, those aspects. I am quite keen on that idea. There might be other suggestions but we could probably slot in an hour and a half or a couple of hours on a session of that sort. That would not commit us to a longer-term inquiry at this point.

I am not averse to that idea. If we wanted to take a more focused approach to the subject, we could consider it in the context of our work on antisocial behaviour, not as an alternative to our work on antisocial behaviour, but as consideration of the positive contributions that local authorities and other bodies are making through providing facilities and opportunities for young people.

I am conscious that a lot of work is done for pre-teen children but that when children reach their teenage years there is a drop in the number of things to do. It would be useful to focus on that.

What seems to be missing is that we wanted to consider the Executive's approach to discipline and behaviour in schools and I thought we were going to try to deal with that fairly early. I suggest that we write to the minister to ask for an update on the Executive's position on behaviour and discipline issues. Perhaps we could then have a balance and recognise that a lot of good work and initiatives are taking place with young people and their organisations. That could be a parallel session to the one that the convener has suggested and it would allow him to do the stocktake that he proposes.

School discipline is referred to in paragraph 11 of the work programme paper and we are writing to the minister on that. I suspect that it might not fit into the time we have available before the autumn recess. We have a limited number of meetings before the break. I am not sure how quickly the Executive will be able to reply to that letter, but I assume it will take two or three weeks. I am not sure that it would fit into the timetable but I am not averse to the idea.

Do we have reasonable agreement on the immediate format of the timetable? I should add that we are trying to fix up some visits. What date did we decide?

We are trying to arrange a visit to a school in Glasgow for the week after next on 17 September. I will confirm that to members.

That will be at the time that the committee would normally meet.

On visits, I thought that we had at the away day given some consideration to the idea of two or three members' going to different places instead of all the members of the committee going to the same place. We could then report back and we would get a wider spectrum of information.

That is the point that I was just about to make. I thought that we were going to visit several schools.

We think that we have a visit to one school arranged and we are looking into the possibility of another so that more members can go to more facilities at the same time.

As it happens, I am not available on that day, so there will be six of you. That might give a reasonable division of three members visiting each of the two schools. That is the kind of format we have in mind. Again, I am relying on my experience on the Social Justice Committee, but that format worked very well for that committee and allowed us to go on a wider range of visits.

There are eight of us so there will be four on each visit.

I had the wrong numbers.

Are there any other points on the work programme? Do the clerks need any other formal decisions?

Can it be assumed that the committee endorses the paper on the work programme?

Yes, with the addition of our suggestions.

Meeting closed at 11:10.