Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 22 Jan 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Official Report 302KB pdf

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National Performance Indicators

We move to agenda item 5, on national performance indicators. I have not received any comments about those, but I am sure that members have comments to make. Those should be brief.

I shall make my comments brief as I suspect that we can do little about the matter. I have considerable reservations. The package is a slight tweaking of "How good is our school?" There is little difference. Those of us who know and have regularly read "How good is our school?" have the impression that the indicators confirm what is in that document.

The exercise is unnecessarily bureaucratic—it is absolutely mired in bureaucracy. Teachers need support and help in assessing their work with their pupils, but they get so much jargon and twaddle—I must use those words, although I normally would not—that they are frightened by them. I see Jackie Baillie responding to the word "twaddle".

I will give examples, one of which particularly sticks out. National priority 3 concerns inclusion and equality. The document states:

"Outcome: every pupil benefits equally from education".

That is impossible. Education must help every pupil to benefit and there must be ways to ensure that every pupil benefits, but the statement is nonsense. That outcome cannot be achieved from the performance measures or anything else. We must help those who are not achieving. Teachers despair about many of the other recommendations in the same way that they despair about constant assessment and constant interruptions to their teaching to answer questions from civil servants and administrators.

The tables are an example of bureaucracy gone mad. Nothing can be done about that because nothing that we say will make the slightest difference to the Executive's determination to carry on with its approach, which is driven by civil servants and inspectors.

However, I will continue to oppose bureaucratic interference in education. We should help teachers to teach, provide the context in which young people can learn and ensure that schools perform their function—the committee might discover that during its inquiry into the purposes of education. The measures may help to support those objectives. Reading through the papers is like wading through cold porridge, but if one does wade through them, one will eventually probably get something out of them.

One tends to despair. It is no wonder that many teachers are alienated and many young people find the whole process impossible.

I have had my say and I suspect that nothing will happen. I wonder about the indicators.

It would be useful for the committee if the Executive indicated what is new in the information and what has been requested elsewhere. Are the papers simply a collation of information that has already been required? Is there substantial new information in them that has been requested?

I was going to make only one point, but I shall rise to the challenge and make more. Throughout the document, there are references to breakdowns by gender and ethnicity where possible. The committee should stress to the Executive that there should be automatic breakdowns by gender, ethnicity, disability and other categories. Unless that is done, one cannot hope to influence future educational provision. There should be less dubiety and more commitment.

The second point is that I agree with what the convener said, but I also agree in part—do not die of shock, Mike—with what Mike Russell said. There are issues about the fact that you can measure equality of input and try to ensure that there is equality of outcome, but that is difficult to measure. All education is focused on the input that people receive. The reality is that some children need more assistance. That raises the debate about targeting those who are most disadvantaged, which is something that will arise through—[Interruption.] Dearie me, is that your press release already, Mike?

No, it is a timer.

There are serious points. While there is a desire to help teachers to teach, the reality is that there is a desire for parents to understand what is going on and for them to have measures of quality. It is about getting the balance right, rather than simply throwing away the package and saying, "We can't change it." Parents should have a mechanism by which to form a view of how good their school is and how well the education system is operating. More balanced comments are required.

Surprisingly, I agree with some of Jackie Baillie's comments. Of course parents must have a mechanism, but the problem is that if you were to give this package to anybody in the street—which is the perfect solution—and ask them what it meant, 99.9 per cent would be incredulous that this was the way in which we were trying to measure things, because it makes no sense at all at times. I did not say that we could not change the package; I said that the Executive will not change it.

Are there any other comments?

I find myself in a difficult position, since I have inveighed often against target setting and league tables where targets are plucked out of the air. At least this package takes us forward, in the sense that we are not looking only at examination results as a judge of schools. The package is logical in that it ties in with the national priorities that have been identified, all of which are full of merit. It will give us statistics that will allow us to form a bigger and better picture of schools than we have had before.

I return to what Mike Russell said. There is hope in the fact that Mike Russell, Jackie Baillie and I have a great degree of common ground. In tweaking things and in our further discussions, we might do well to look again at the document.

One other point that we should make in our response to the Executive is that there is a need to continually review and evaluate what is happening. In the light of our inquiry and the Executive's inquiry into national priorities and the future of education, there may be a need ahead of the three-year target to determine whether we have the appropriate mechanism for judging and measuring education. Perhaps some of the things that come out of the discussions that we are all having over the coming six months will provide a better way to do things. There may be a need to highlight that what we have is not set in stone, and that there is a need to continue to examine the issue and perhaps produce alternatives if the debate that we engage in shows us something positive for the future.

I wonder who draws up the statistics. Like Mike Russell, I do not want there to be much impact on teachers in the classroom if it can be helped. If, as has been suggested, quite a lot of material is already held by local authorities or school administrations, I hope that people in the classroom do not have to do the same work again and reinvent the wheel and the statistics.

If there are no further comments, I will close this meeting.

Will those comments be passed on to the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People for a response?

I will provide a written response to the minister. He will also get a copy of the Official Report, which reflects members' comments in more detail than I will be able to do in a letter of only one page.

Convener, will you be lodging the motions that we need to discuss on the subordinate legislation?

No. The deputy convener will lodge the motion, because I will have to convene the meeting.

Excellent.

I have nothing to lose but my chains.

Absolutely.

As I understand it, we will lodge fairly simple motions, and they will be the same for each instrument, for example, "The Education, Culture and Sport Committee recommends that nothing be done," followed by the name of the statutory instrument. We will lodge them tomorrow.

Is the meeting now finished?

Yes, the meeting is finished.

Meeting closed at 17:29.