Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 17 Jan 2001

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 17, 2001

Official Report 220KB pdf

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Reporters

The next item concerns remits for committee reporters. If members are happy with their remits, I suggest that, before the meeting in two weeks' time, they draw up a work plan of what they will be doing. If they want to undertake any visits, they should put together a bid for funding, which I will take to the conveners group.

I have submitted a remit and a time scale. Last week, I spoke to the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee, which has been discussing what it would be most useful to do; I have synthesised its paper into the remit. It has said that it is more than happy to co-operate fully with the inquiry, to give evidence to the committee when we meet in Stornoway and to provide the information that we would need for the starter report. In the light of that progress, I have drafted a remit suggesting that we produce the starter report by the end of April 2001, visit the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee in mid to late June 2001, produce a draft report by September 2001 and issue a final report by the end of September or early October 2001. I hope that that suggestion is acceptable to the committee. If it is, I shall start to organise the information.

The report has been circulated to committee members. Do you envisage the session in Stornoway being a formal committee meeting?

I hope so. No committee has taken evidence in the Western Isles.

The Rural Affairs Committee did.

I am sorry; so it did. There is a need to take evidence from where things should happen. There is an attempt to make the Western Isles a production base for Gaelic broadcasting and the islands are, of course, the centre of the language. Holding a meeting in Stornoway would send all the right messages and I hope that the Parliamentary Bureau will accept that a visit by this committee to the Western Isles can only be of benefit.

The conveners group now approves such visits. If you could pull together something in time for the meeting a fortnight from now, that would be helpful.

If I can do a costing, will you take it to the conveners group?

Indeed I will, if members agree to that course of action. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I have a small concern about the proposed remit. The second line of the paper mentions the

"economic, social and cultural benefit".

That might suggest that there is a blank cheque. I know that there is not, Michael Russell knows that there is not and I am sure other members know that there is not. A different form of wording, such as "economic, social and cultural costs and benefits" might be better. We seem to be looking only at benefits. That may not be Michael's intention.

I am sure that the statistics will be available and will reveal what the costs are, but we will have to relate which of the different projects are the best ones to back. I am not sure whether we need to change the remit, but I think that we need to consider the costs and the benefits that can be derived. Priority can be given to the right things to back.

I suggest that, if Mike Russell agrees, we could change the wording to "economic, social and cultural impact".

That is fine.

If that is agreed, we can move on. Mike Russell can proceed with his costing and people will be able to factor the relevant dates into their diaries.

Can we agree that I will proceed and gather the appropriate information?

Yes.

I would like to persuade the committee to refocus the remit of my proposed reporting on

"language teaching in schools, including Gaelic, Scots and foreign languages."

My feeling is that the context for that should be the cultural strategy, not education policy or schools. The word "teaching" should be deleted; the issue is wider than education alone and is more about support and development. I accept that there is a whole issue around language teaching, particularly modern language teaching, but that is a different, specific matter. We have all received copies of "Citizens of a Multilingual World", which focuses on languages in this country. That cuts across the remit that I have been given.

There are specific issues about Scots in particular, but also about Gaelic, especially in relation to the support—or lack of support—that exists or is perceived to exist. It would be most useful for our committee inquiry to focus on a strategy to review the place of Scots and Gaelic in our schools and in a wider cultural context. The inquiry should cover both cultural and educational policy and provision; it should address the concerns about how to broaden the use of Scots and Gaelic in the cultural strategy. However, I am open to further suggestions.

I was also concerned about teaching in schools, but I agree that the issue is broader than that. I wonder whether there could also be space for minority languages. Some families in Scotland feel that their language is not represented. It might be worth including minority languages in the remit, but it is particularly important to examine the position of Scots, given its importance for the cultural strategy.

I think that this stems from last week's discussion, when Brian Monteith suggested that we should examine the teaching of foreign languages in schools—although it is perhaps not correct to put that together with consideration of Scots and Gaelic. Foreign language teaching in schools could be the subject of a separate report.

That was the point that I was about to raise. I raised the matter last week because the document "Citizens of a Multilingual World" arrived on my desk. I linked foreign languages to Gaelic in the context of the discussion about the benefits of immersion teaching in learning Gaelic or French, for example. There was some crossover between the issues in the context of language teaching, but not in a wider cultural sense. That might merit investigation.

I understand entirely Irene McGugan's points about the cultural aspects, but it is important for us to respond to "Citizens of a Multilingual World", which investigates the teaching of foreign languages in Scottish schools. If it is the committee's suggestion that we should split the cultural and educational aspects, that would have my agreement.

Should we treat the two issues separately? Irene McGugan might want to consider some of the teaching aspects, if that is appropriate.

Certainly in the context of schools, yes.

Shall we factor consideration of the document on the teaching of languages in schools into a future agenda?

Members indicated agreement.

If members have no further comments on the reporters' proposed remits, we can close this agenda item. Before we hear evidence, I suggest that we break for a few minutes.

Meeting adjourned.

On resuming—