Education Committee, 15 Sep 2004
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Official Report
188KB pdf
Petition
Technology Teachers Association Petition to Advance Technical/Technology Education Within Scottish Secondary Schools (PE233)
Good morning and welcome to the Education Committee. I am struggling to get the hang of the new technology. As we are in public session, I ask everyone to ensure that their mobile phones and pagers are turned off.
At this first meeting in the new building, the enormous sense of power that I have sitting at the top of this table is nobody's business, so I will probably act in a totally different fashion to how I did in the old building.
The first item on the agenda is the review of the Technology Teachers Association petition, which was considered by the previous Education, Culture and Sport Committee. It has been drawn to our attention that there has been a hiatus in finishing consideration of the petition. I asked the clerks to obtain an update of the Executive's position and members will note the correspondence among their papers this morning. Subject to the committee's agreement and following any comments that we make, I intend to write to the petitioners, with a copy of the Executive's response, asking them whether they are happy with the position, whether they wish to raise any other issues at this point and telling them that we are about to conduct a review of the curriculum during which we might take on board one or two of their issues. Does anyone have any observations on the correspondence from the Executive?
I echo your point about the importance of drawing to the association's attention the curriculum review. I am slightly disconcerted by how long petition PE233 has been before the Parliament and I am a bit concerned that the petitioners will not be overly impressed by that. At the same time, there has been some progress and a curriculum review is the first point of action that the petitioners seek. If the association wants to make its views known, not only to the Executive but to us, it would be more than welcome.
I should explain that I was unaware of the existence of the petition. It was not covered by the legacy paper that we received from the previous committee and it was only when the petitioners wrote to ask me what was happening that I asked for it to be reconsidered. I am sorry that there appears to have been a hiccup on the Parliament's part, but we are now squaring the circle and advancing the petition. The central issue is to see whether we can satisfy the petitioners' concerns or put pressure on the Executive to deal with some of the issues that have been raised.
If no one has anything else to say on that point, with members' agreement we will write to the petitioners after the meeting. I am conscious that some of their representatives are here this morning and I am happy to welcome them to the meeting.