Official Report 513KB pdf
Agenda item 5 is consideration of the “Brussels Bulletin”. Do members have any questions or comments? I draw your attention to the section on the progress that is being made on horizon 2020 and how the funds are being split up.
A wee section on page 6 headed
“Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council”
refers to
“New digital learning tools, such as Open Education Resources”.
There is not a lot of detail there, but it chimes with some of our work and thinking on glow, which is the Scottish open access framework for education. We know that glow is being redeveloped, but I want to alert the committee to the issue. I ask that we keep a wee eye on what the open education resource tools might be in a European context, because there might well be other technical solutions out there that offer such services and interactions for pupils and their parents in their learning environments.
When we undertook our inquiry into foreign languages in primary schools, we found that some of the schools that we visited had links with other schools across Europe and they would send each other letters and emails and participate in lessons over the internet. Some of the smaller children—the five and six-year-olds—were whizz kids and were, for example, communicating via Skype with kids in other countries. What we saw there was beneficial and I certainly think that all these things give added value.
I am afraid that I must admit my ignorance about the emissions trading scheme. I wonder whether the people who compile the bulletin could give us a wee bit more information about how it actually operates instead of simply saying that a particular proposal has been agreed.
I suggest that we check that out with the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee clerks, because I believe that that committee has carried out work on that very issue. We might not need to go very far to get the information that you seek.
I suppose that this also brings us back to our inquiry into foreign languages in primary schools, but another area that I am interested in is the roll-out of Erasmus+. The bulletin says that the organisations involved in
“the implementation of Erasmus+ in the UK will”
primarily
“be the British Council and Ecorys”.
I wonder how we might feed into that work, particularly on the issue of foreign language assistants. It would be really interesting to find out how Scotland’s requirements are being met in the roll-out, because I know that the British Council was concerned about the drop in FLAs. The fact that only a few councils in Scotland now use them might be quite important as far as the roll-out is concerned.
Perhaps we can write to the British Council and ask for a wee update on the issue, because it said that it was making progress as well. [Interruption.] The clerk has just told me that the British Council covered the issue in its most recent update, so perhaps we should look back at that and take things from there.
Given the comments that have been made about integration with COSLA, it is important that that information is shared with our partners.
Let us check the recent update and see where we go from there.
Are members happy to recommend the “Brussels Bulletin” to other subject committees and, in particular, to draw the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s attention to the emissions stuff?
Members indicated agreement.
Excellent. Thank you very much. We will now move into private session.
10:51 Meeting continued in private until 11:21.Previous
Committee of the Regions