Skills Academies
Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on motion S2M-5386, in the name of Murdo Fraser, on education—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. No member of the Executive is here to respond to the debate. Is it competent for the debate to proceed without a member of the Executive to move the Executive's amendment and respond to the debate?
That is a matter for the Executive. No doubt members note your point, but the situation does not prevent the debate from continuing.
On a further point of order, Presiding Officer, the subject of this morning's debate is education, with specific reference to skills academies. The motion that we have lodged refers to skills academies, as does the amendment that Fiona Hyslop lodged on behalf of the Scottish National Party. However, the Executive's amendment, in the name of Robert Brown—who is absent from the chamber—does not refer to skills academies. Is that amendment competent, given that it does not address the subject of the debate?
As you will be aware, Mr Fraser, I put considerable thought into the selection of amendments and I have done so in this case. However, I very rarely give any degree of explanation on the matter.
Further to that point of order, Presiding Officer, as the First Minister has made an announcement in support of skills academies, I refer to the ministerial code and seek an examination of whether any civil service time or public money was used for that announcement. As the Executive has chosen not to include the matter in its amendment, it is clear that the First Minister's announcement was on behalf of the Labour Party, not the Liberal Democrat-Labour Executive.
You will be aware, Ms Hyslop, that complaints that relate to the ministerial code are a matter for the First Minister, not for me. I suggest that you write to him on the matter. Can we now carry on?
I am pleased that we have got here, Presiding Officer.
We in the Scottish Conservative party have for many years championed the principle of extending to youngsters of school age the opportunity for vocational education. We believe that a system in which all children must concentrate fully on academic subjects after the age of 14 is increasingly out of date and that such an approach fails to meet the needs of our economy, given that employers tell us continually that school leavers often do not have the skills that employers seek. The current system fails too many youngsters, who are simply turned off by academic subjects and would welcome the opportunity for more vocational learning, which might help to motivate them to engage more fully with the school environment. We all know about the horrific statistics on the increase in school indiscipline and levels of truancy in the past eight years, which I do not need to repeat today.
In promoting those ideas, it has, as always, been the Scottish Conservatives' ambition to promote a consensus and to seek to win friends for our approach. I am delighted that we seem to be winning converts to our cause. Other parties in the Parliament have in the past expressed their support for extending vocational education to those who are aged 14 and above although, to be fair, different approaches have been suggested as to how that might be implemented in practice.
The latest convert is no less a person than the First Minister. Speaking at Labour's conference in Manchester in September, Jack McConnell acknowledged the problem of underachievement in our schools:
"we can no longer tolerate the tail of underachievement. The bottom 20% for whom standards have failed to rise significantly since 1999—their achievements, opportunities and aspirations are a national priority.
We must inspire those who are turned off by school. We must help those young Scots who leave school to do nothing.
We will drive up standards in maths and English, specifically to give every young person the opportunity to pass a tough literacy and numeracy test before they leave school.
And I want centres of excellence in schools and colleges—to provide all young Scots with proper vocational options from the age of 14.
So today conference, I can announce that the 2007 Labour manifesto for Scotland will commit to new Skills Academies creating new opportunities in every part of Scotland."
I would struggle to put it better myself.
The idea of skills academies is welcome, and one on which I hope a new consensus will emerge. We therefore lodged our motion in the expectation that it would have broad support from throughout the Parliament, particularly from Labour members. We are thus rather disappointed that the Executive's amendment does not even mention skills academies, never mind give the idea the fulsome support that we might have expected from the language that Mr McConnell used just a few months ago. What can be behind the situation? Surely it cannot be another example of the Labour Party letting its junior partner in the coalition run roughshod over it. [Applause.] I welcome the Minister for Education and Young People to the chamber. He has made a rather belated appearance, but he is welcome nonetheless.
Surely we have another example of the Liberal Democrat tail wagging the Labour dog. The irony is that, in the past, the Liberal Democrats expressed support for more vocational education. One might think that Liberal Democrat members would have a special interest in upskilling the workforce at this time. According to a YouGov poll that was reported yesterday, Liberal Democrat representation in the Parliament after the election in May will fall to a mere 14 members. I might have thought that the three Liberal Democrat MSPs who are facing redundancy and who will have to seek employment in the real world after May would be keen to acquire the skills that are necessary for the workforce. However, the Liberal Democrats are putting their party-political ideology ahead of the greater good and the interests of Scotland's youngsters.
What might skills academies look like? The pronouncements from the First Minister have not contained a great deal of detail, so perhaps Labour members can further enlighten us today. A figure of 100 skills academies has been mentioned. I cannot imagine that they will all be new stand-alone schools, so I imagine that some at least will be within existing school campuses. Work is already being done on that. On Monday, I visited Forfar academy, where part of the school building is being converted into a vocational training centre, as part of a partnership between the school and Angus College. The development will give youngsters access to vocational training in various trades in the school environment. That is a welcome initiative, and I am sure that it can be replicated elsewhere in the country.
Will the member take an intervention?
If one of the candidates for redundancy wants to intervene, I am happy to give way.
The development that Murdo Fraser mentions is interesting but, of course, it is not a skills academy. How does he envisage skills academies working in places such as rural Aberdeenshire in my constituency, where there are few academies and people must travel many miles to attend them? Where would he place the skills academies?
I shall happily expand on that point in due course, but perhaps Mr Rumbles might want to address the question to his Executive colleagues, who of course are the ones who have raised the issue. Perhaps the Minister for Education and Young People, in responding to the debate, might want to address the issue, given that skills academies are, we believe, a Labour Party proposal.
We should have stand-alone skills academies. The Conservatives have in the past argued for a city academy in Glasgow to provide vocational training as an alternative approach to education for the city's youngsters. I hope that the First Minister is inclined to support that sort of initiative.
There is no doubt that Scotland's employers are concerned about the need to address skills gaps, particularly among school leavers. Gerard Eadie, who is the chairman of CR Smith and the vice-chair of the Prince's Trust Scotland, has spoken out on the issue, saying that the advantage of vocational education is that it helps to impart soft skills, such as those relating to teamwork and discipline, and even literacy and numeracy skills, as well as the acquisition of hard skills. Other employers groups, such as the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, have welcomed the idea of skills academies.
Some people will say that the proposal is all about going back to a two-tier system of education. The dinosaur tendency among some of the teaching unions has taken just such an approach. Reacting to the idea of skills academies, a representative of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association said:
"It is going back to the bad old days."
In the past, I heard the same argument from Labour members in the Parliament. However, that is not what the idea is all about—it is about giving all youngsters the opportunity to access a different type of education. It is also about acknowledging that many young people in our school system simply are not engaged with academic work, and that providing vocational education will be of particular benefit to them. The First Minister was quoted in the Sunday Herald on 24 September as saying:
"Vocational courses will motivate kids who are maybe heading off the rails and give them a subject that really interests them."
We know that we have a serious problem in Scotland with youngsters who are not in employment, education or training. The proposal is part of the answer to that problem.
I am glad that the debate on Scottish education is starting to move on. I have never believed that we need a one-size-fits-all approach to education. Too many of Scotland's youngsters have not been well served by that approach in recent years. Opening up opportunities to vocational education and creating skills academies will be good for the education system, good for our economy and employers and, in particular, good for our nation's youngsters.
I hope that there will be support throughout the chamber for our motion, which is about taking Scotland forward.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that our education system should provide children with opportunities to flourish along the lines of their own particular aptitudes and inclinations; notes that for many children over the age of 14 this could predominantly involve activity in a practical or vocational sphere, rather than in a traditional academic one, and welcomes the proposal to establish skills academies, be they stand-alone or attached to schools or colleges, depending on what is most appropriate for a local area, as centres of excellence to extend opportunities to access vocational education to students from the age of 14.
Before I speak, I would like to apologise to the chamber—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Is it fair and proper that a minister who appears three quarters of the way through the opening speech of a debate is then called to respond to it?
While it is not satisfactory, Mr Gallie, there is nothing to stop it, and I think that Mr Brown was about to apologise for that fact.
Yes, Presiding Officer. I am sorry that I was late, but there was a misunderstanding in my diary about the order in which this morning's debates were being dealt with. I apologise to Murdo Fraser for missing about half of his speech. However, I hope that I can pick up on some of the issues that he dealt with when I make my closing speech. We are aware of the issues in this debate.
There is a sense in which education—in terms of its importance, its life-enhancing power and the doors that it can open—defines Scotland and Scotland's identity in the world. Traditionally, we have had a view of education that has been practical and has had practical skills at its core. Engineering, trade, enterprise, medicine, the law and inventions are the sort of areas that are distinctive to Scotland and in which Scotland has made a distinguished contribution over the years.
Today, every nation with foresight and ambition is investing in education. They recognise, as everyone in this Parliament does, that education and skills are the key to the future in this global age. Underlying today's debate is a belief on all sides of the chamber that we need an educated and highly skilled population and that we cannot afford to lose young people from the workforce. We must ensure that they are able to live rewarding lives rather than ending up as casualties of the social divisions, deprivation and challenges that face some of them at the start of their lives. The effects of many of those challenges play themselves out in schools and, to address those challenges, our education system and our wider social policies and attitudes must respond.
In opening today's debate for the Scottish Executive, it is absolutely right to say that we have devoted a large part of our effort since 1999 to strengthening our education system. The narrative in our amendment about the new and refurbished schools, increased teacher numbers and stable industrial relations in particular is not just a list of some of the good things that we have done since 1999—although we have done a lot of good things—it represents the necessary building blocks to give teachers the best potential to teach, to give students the best opportunities to learn, to encourage the great educational leaders whom we need at all levels and to reduce the numbers who fall out of the system.
To put that in context, a day or two ago I read the report that was published last month by the joint performance team that measures progress towards a smart, successful Scotland. It reveals substantial and solid progress in key areas since 1999. It shows that Scottish gross domestic product per head is up by half as much again as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average; that we have a higher employment rate than the rest of the UK—and one that is growing faster as well; that we have higher rates of academic spin-outs per head from our universities than the United Kingdom as a whole, the United States of America or Canada; that we have the highest proportion of any part of the UK of young people achieving national vocational qualifications at level 3 or above; and that we have a high ranking among the best in the world on the programme for international student assessment, which benchmarks the performance of young people internationally in science, maths and reading.
The minister has not mentioned class sizes. The Executive's target was to have maximum class sizes of 20 for maths and English by May this year. Would he care to comment on the progress in that regard?
I am delighted to comment on that. Central to what we have been doing is the number of teachers whom we have been putting into the system. By the class-size target date that Dave Petrie mentions, we will have 53,000 teachers in the system and class sizes will meet the targets that we set.
Will the member give way?
I need to press on. This is a short debate.
We know that there are particular challenges. For example, the educational attainment of looked-after children is more or less flat; the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training is unacceptable, as Murdo Fraser said; and too many young people are disengaging from learning. Those are long-term challenges to which we have increasingly been giving focused attention and in relation to which we absolutely require to succeed.
We are reforming the curriculum, which is going ahead under full steam. We are providing greater choice, in the interests of motivation, and more work-related options, including vocational learning in schools and colleges, as part of the school-based curriculum.
Will the minister give way?
I am sorry, I must proceed. I have only five minutes in which to speak.
We have already gone a long way towards our goals by giving young people over 14 the opportunity to undertake a college-based course as part of their school programme. Enterprise in education is a considerable success and is changing attitudes throughout the education system. We have established new skills for work courses to help pupils of all abilities to develop their employability skills and gain valuable insight into the world of work. Already, around 5,000 students are studying the pilot skills for work courses and the intention is to roll out those courses nationally from session 2007-08 and into other vocational areas.
There is, of course, much debate to be had about where those challenges take us. We must widen and deepen vocational options, develop partnerships between schools and colleges in new ways, continue to build on the highly successful modern apprenticeship schemes, develop better links between businesses and the education system, use youth work methods and approaches to re-engage those who are demotivated, and use the creative power of the arts, music, sport and, indeed, language and science to inspire and enthuse young people.
Education will continue to be central to the political debate as we approach the elections in May. The Scottish Government has achieved a great deal, has reanchored our education system to the pulse of our country and has laid the foundations for it to be the best education system in the world.
I move amendment S2M-5386.4, to leave out from "believes" to end and insert:
"welcomes the priority given to improving education standards by the Scottish Executive, local authorities, schools and other partners; recognises that the Executive's investment in new and refurbished schools, increased teacher numbers, reducing class sizes, strong parental involvement and stable industrial relations is providing the right environment for real and lasting change for Scotland's children; welcomes the new opportunities that are being developed through A Curriculum for Excellence and Determined to Succeed, including enabling young people across Scotland aged 14 to 16 to undertake vocational learning in further education colleges as part of the school-based curriculum; believes that a strong and relevant education system is fundamental to securing a smart, successful Scotland in which all our 16 to 19 year-olds are in education, employment or training, and calls for steadily improving opportunities for young people to achieve success in education including, particularly, opportunities to study a wider range of vocational options."
I thank the Conservatives for bringing this important subject for debate to the chamber. I want to concentrate on some of the things that we can all agree on.
We all agree that skills and vocational training for post-14 pupils is essential. The issue that we face is how to make progress on that aim and whether we have done enough to make progress. We also all agree that the school-college review was important in identifying the links between colleges and schools and that the skills for work programme and the qualifications that it provides are welcome.
However, there are concerns about the new pronouncements on skills academies. The absence of any reference to them in the minister's speech or amendment says more about the internal divisions in the Executive than anything else. Perhaps what has been placed before us is a diplomatic coalition fudge. However, let us leave the Executive to its internal divisions and address how we can improve skills, training, experience and opportunities for young people.
From the Education Committee's inquiry into pupil motivation, we know that pupils are telling us that they will not be motivated if the skills academies and vocational opportunities are just for those who do not have academic ability. What do employers and people in the trade organisations tell us? The Conservatives are fond of talking about plumbers, so let me tell them what Robert Burgon, the director and secretary of the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, said about the First Minister's announcement:
"It appears that our First Minister has decided that non-academic 14-year-olds should be removed from mainstream schooling to attend a skills academy to learn a trade, such as plumbing.
The Scottish plumbing industry has worked hard over many years to remove the idea that a career in plumbing is only for those who struggle with basic subjects … this latest announcement bears all the signs that we have some way to go before we convince our leaders that following a vocational route is an acceptable alternative".
The plumbers and those in the skills federations want to ensure that people who have academic abilities can make that choice.
The Conservatives also like to quote the Headteachers Association of Scotland. It warns that the skills academies might attract the most disaffected pupils and could be
"a magnet for middle-ability pupils who see the vocational modules as an easier option than more academic subjects".
The association is concerned that the proposal could
"herald a return to old divisions between junior and senior secondary schools."
Do we want to provide skills and vocational opportunities for all, which is the SNP's position, or do we want to offer those opportunities on a selective basis, which is the Executive's proposition?
Murdo Fraser talked about Forfar academy, in SNP-led Angus Council's area, which demonstrates precisely the example that we need to follow. I suspect that the Labour Party's announcement on skills academies is an attempt to make it look as though it is trying to do something new, but it is a cop-out. The Executive is covering up what it has not done over the past few years, and SNP councils such as Angus Council are showing the way forward.
We can have skills bases and skills departments—we can even call them skills academies if they are within the mainstream operation of schools. Indeed, if the schools of ambition programme was extended from music and drama into vocational skills, perhaps that would be something else that we could agree on. However, if skills academies are just some kind of concept or marketing branding that is used to cover up what the Executive has not done, I am sorry, but we are not interested.
The pupils, the teachers, the employers and the skills federations are saying that they want real training with substance and opportunities for all. We should let the pupils decide whether they want to take the opportunity to learn vocational skills to gain the competencies that Murdo Fraser talked about or whether they want to pursue an academic route into further and higher education. That is the key choice, and it is what we should be debating.
I move amendment S2M-5386.2, to leave out from "for many children" to end and insert:
"most political parties have recognised the need for more vocational experiences for pupils over 14 since 2003 and is concerned about lack of progress in providing this to date; agrees with the position of the Schools and Colleges Review and the Parliament's Education Committee in its recent Pupil Motivation inquiry that all children should have vocational opportunities and that these should not be restricted by assessment of academic ability at the age of 14; acknowledges that the real challenge is to provide opportunities and choice for all pupils, working together with schools and colleges, and notes the concerns of skills and trades organisations that the proposal for skills academies provided for pupils with lack of academic ability, as proposed recently by the First Minister, is not what is required by them to meet current and future skills demand."
Given the fact that this is an Opposition debate initiated by the Conservatives, I begin on the rather unlikely note—for me—of welcoming the terms of the motion. I do so tentatively, as I am aware of the old adage that one should beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Perhaps as the debate continues we will explore the thinking behind the motion. Given the Conservatives' appalling record on education while they were in power and their failure to support virtually anything that the Executive has delivered, it would be churlish not to welcome their support for a policy that, following the elections in May, we will implement throughout Scotland.
I will outline several reasons why I believe that skills academies are needed. Colleagues on the Education Committee will be aware, from our inquiry into pupil motivation, of the difficulties in engaging some young people in school life. That problem affects too many pupils at every stage of their progression through school, and it can be particularly acute in the later school years. Some young people who are approaching the end of their compulsory schooling can face real difficulties in getting anything out of their education, which can lead to difficulties for teachers in managing those pupils' behaviour and difficulties for society, as many of the young people will end up drifting without qualifications, employment or education and training for their future life.
The choices that are available to those students are limited. I will give an example. A good friend of my family faced a real dilemma when he was 15. He was at school in East Renfrewshire. As members may imagine, it was an excellent school—one of the best in Scotland—but he was not making the most of himself. Philip was a bright boy but, whether because of non-conformity or whatever, he was not getting on as he should. Because he was only 15, he had to apply to the head teacher and the director of education to transfer to nearby Langside College. Thankfully, permission was granted and he has flourished. At college, he sat alongside other young adults who chose to be there and applied themselves to their studies. Notably, all the students were treated as adults rather than as school pupils. As a result, Philip stayed on and achieved his qualifications, and he is now going to university rather than dropping out—which was a distinct possibility at one stage.
There is a real need for us to improve the vocational option for the sake of our society and our economy. I doubt whether there is a member present who has not heard from an employer who is desperate to take on job-ready young men and women in order to train them up in a trade, a skill or a small business. We need to drive up the status of the vocational option. My one worry about skills academies is that we should avoid introducing a two-tier system. Because of the dominance of the academic over the vocational option in our education system, it would be too easy for the academies to become routes to a second-class education. I do not want to be unfair, but my suspicion about the Tories, given their past record and their support of privilege for the few, is that—to use rather archaic language—they see vocational education as a device to keep the lower orders in their place. We must ensure that skills academies are a genuine choice—one option out of many—for young people. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the 11-plus exam, which became a dividing point. As part of our commitment to lifelong learning, the skills academies should be one option among many to allow young people to fulfil their potential and make the most of their abilities—not one chance, but one of many chances.
I have used the word "choice", which is an important word in education. It should not be confused with what the Tories call choice—that is, choice for some people. Our commitment to skills academies stands alongside our support for modern apprenticeships and education maintenance allowances—both policies that the Tories opposed. EMAs are about giving young people, who sometimes come from challenging backgrounds, a real choice to stay on at school and pursue their studies. Now, they will have a further choice through skills academies. The failure of the Tories to support EMAs as well as skills academies shows that they still support choice for the few, not choice for all.
Will Ken Macintosh explain how skills academies can work in rural areas such as Aberdeenshire? If the Executive is not going to establish skills academies in rural Scotland as well as in urban Scotland, will we have a two-tier system or a different system? Are our kids not going to be educated together?
I ask Ken Macintosh to close after he has answered.
I will close, Presiding Officer.
As I have said, it is important that we avoid creating a two-tier system. The academies will be a properly resourced option. A skills academy could be set up in a secondary school or college or could be stand-alone, and any of the schools in Mike Rumbles's constituency could be adapted in the same way as the schools in my constituency.
Will Ken Macintosh give way?
No. I am sorry, but he must close.
I apologise. I was going to make the point that we are talking about education, not separation.
We have excellent schools in this country, but the uniformity of school life is not to everyone's taste. The skills academies will provide an opportunity for everybody to educate and liberate themselves and make the most of their abilities. I conclude with this appeal to the minister: following the elections in May, I ask that East Renfrewshire be among the first areas to be considered for a new skills academy.
The Conservative party in the Scottish Parliament has long advocated greater emphasis on skills and vocational training in our schools and through associations between schools and local further education colleges. For example, in debates in 2002 and 2004, the Parliament approved Conservative amendments and motions that called for school pupils from the age of 14 to be given greater opportunities to take courses at FE colleges. We welcomed the support that we received from other parties.
Does Mr McLetchie accept that the establishment of school-college links for 14 to 16-year-olds in particular was at the heart of the 2003 partnership agreement and has been delivered by the Executive?
I happily acknowledge that the Executive has, in part, adopted the approach to such links that the Conservatives have long advocated and have proposed in our motions and amendments. It is interesting that the minister's amendment suggests that vocational training will take place only within the context of an FE college, whereas the issue that we are discussing is whether vocational and skills training should take place in our schools. That is the nub of the matter.
It is not surprising that concerns have been expressed about the details of the scheme. Although we were pleased to receive the First Minister's commitment to the enhancement of skills training through the possible establishment of 100 skills academies in schools and FE colleges throughout Scotland, beyond the general concept we have very little information about what is intended and how it would work in practice. First, given that there are 385 secondary schools and 46 FE colleges in Scotland, what is the rationale behind the figure of 100 skills academies? Why not make it 50 or 150? Why not have a skills academy in all secondary schools? Surely there must be young people in every school—including those in Mr Rumbles's constituency—who would benefit from such training. Is the initiative intended to achieve universal coverage?
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thank you. I must make progress.
Secondly, to what extent are the so-called academies to be separate entities that are run independently from the rest of the schools? Will they simply be ramped-up technical departments with a grandiose title? Will they seek sponsors and funding from business? Will businesspeople be involved in a governing board?
Thirdly, will attendance at courses that are run by the staff of skills academies be the whole or only part of the curriculum that the young people concerned will follow?
Will the member give way?
No, thank you.
It is legitimate to ask those questions about the proposal and to inquire whether this policy goal is supported by both the Minister for Education and Young People and his deputy. Perhaps we will receive some answers. However, although I have questions and may not agree with the answers, what was entirely typical and depressing about the wider reaction to the First Minister's speech was the dismal negativity that was shown by the Scottish educational establishment, which demonstrated yet again that it is stuck in a 1960s time warp and refuses to face the fact that the comprehensive school system has failed far too many children in Scotland—not least those whom it was intended to benefit most. As far as those dinosaurs are concerned, any alternative model for the delivery of education and training is to be viewed with suspicion and scorn. The same was true of the reaction to the First Minister's subsequent call for the establishment of regional science academies as specialist upper schools.
Whether they are made north or south of the border, the proposals for skills academies, science academies and city academies demonstrate the failure of the one-size-fits-all neighbourhood comprehensive school, where the standard of education and curriculum choice that are available to pupils are dictated by their parents' postcode and the price their parents can pay for a home.
The young people who are failed by the system range from potential high-fliers with academic aptitude for subjects such as science and languages to underachieving youngsters who are not so good at the academic subjects and who would benefit from enhanced vocational training. That is the reality. The Labour Government down south knows that that is the case; up here, there is only a grudging acknowledgement of that and a few tentative steps in the right direction, which we have long advocated. We are being held back by the timidity of Labour ministers and the downright hostility of those who are still in thrall to the ideology of the comprehensive. Our motion gives fair credit for a step in the right direction and I am sure that it will be supported by the more enlightened members of the Parliament.
I hope that I am an enlightened member of the Parliament, but I am not sure that I support everything that David McLetchie said.
The Scottish Executive, backed by the Parliament, committed itself to the principles and practice of the curriculum for excellence. In time, that step could completely reshape Scottish education so that it comes closer to the needs of our young people and gives them far greater opportunities to develop their potential. Dedication to that vision should herald a gradual process of development but not a revolution. All the parts, tools, knowledge and examples of good practice are already in the system; it is simply a question of refocusing what we do. Rather than doing the same things better, we should be doing better things—things that we have already been doing in a small way for years.
We need to consider what art, music, technical subjects, dance, drama, outdoor education and sport—those undervalued but essential parts of education—can do for our young people and recognise fully the huge contribution that those activities, disciplines and skills can make to the fully rounded development and education of our young people. Vocational skills are not the only opportunities that are in short supply in the curriculum.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will take a very brief intervention—I have a lot to say.
Will Robin Harper accept that a good part of the increase in teacher numbers has been devoted to the aspirations that he is talking about?
Indeed, and I hope that the proposals are consonant with my ambitions in that respect.
As a nation, we are still committed to the principle of comprehensive state secular education being made available to all. Our schools are based in our communities and are our principal community assets, making their contribution to our sense of place from an early age. However, I am not yet sure how the notion of specific skills academies will sit within that philosophical framework. My party is concerned that at least one quarter of our young people leave school feeling that it was a negative experience. The curriculum for excellence has every chance of addressing the problem, although it is open to question whether purpose-built skills academies will contribute hugely unless so many are created that in effect we go back to the former divisive English system of secondary moderns and grammar schools. I am not sure that we want to go down such a regressive path. However, the possibility of investing heavily in skills development in all our comprehensive schools, in co-ordination with local further education colleges, and investing where demand is identified by schools, parents, pupils and local labour markets would seem to be sensible and proper.
We should beware of seeing skills academies as a panacea for the skills gap in Scotland, which has continued to widen since 1999. It is far more important that all our young people should be confident within themselves, adaptable, socially confident and always ready to learn new skills.
In conclusion, I suggest that we see what can be achieved by inviting individual comprehensive schools to tender for skills academy status and investment, and invest that money across the country, retaining the comprehensive nature of all our schools. We should not even think about pursuing a course that could have unforeseen and unwanted consequences for our comprehensive system of state education.
Like my colleague Kenneth Macintosh, I welcome the debate and recognise that the Conservatives' motion has some element of worth. However, I would not necessarily agree with the contributions that were made this morning, particularly that of David McLetchie. It is wrong to claim that the comprehensive model of education has failed the majority of Scots. In fact, all the academic research indicates that the comprehensive model has been much better than the two-tier Scottish education model that existed in the 1950s and 1960s.
The debate is about what we should do to ensure that the comprehensive model is flexible enough to address the needs of diverse communities in both rural and urban Scotland. I acknowledge the concern of individuals such as Mike Rumbles, although I say to him that the debate is about how to frame and shape the idea during the next year, depending on the outcome of the May elections. Our starting point is that too many young boys and girls leave school without the basic expectations that we think that they should have of their educational attainment and without the opportunities that they should have in life.
Much of the debate is predicated on old-fashioned principles. It is about how to modernise the curriculum in and beyond school to give choice to as many young people as possible. I was a teacher in Glasgow secondary schools in the late 1980s and I remember that there was a very passionate debate about the introduction of the technical and vocational education initiative. Many of the concerns that were raised at that time did not come to pass. Much of the work that was done by the TVEI energised many schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, to give opportunities to their youngsters. I therefore see the skills academies as being in line with the package of many other initiatives that have been undertaken by the Executive recently.
Whether we like it or not, the issue is not to do with whether an academic student does not want to take any elements of the skills academy pathway; it is to do with the fact that too many of our youngsters have been pushed into an academic educational experience that is clearly not suited to their needs. In my experience of teaching in the east end of Glasgow, too many young people were forced to take subjects that they could not cope with, and that impacted on their wider experience of school.
Here is a confession: I was once an apprentice—probably the first Francis Aloysius McAveety who was an apprentice boy in the east end of Glasgow, but there we go. When I was 16, I chose to be an apprentice electrician because of pressure from my father. It was a reasonable choice, but I was not happy with it, so I changed my mind about it and caused great parental dissatisfaction. How can we ensure that other youngsters have the chance to make the best of that vocational opportunity that did not suit me? We need to allow for flexibility in the system.
I welcome the skills academies concept. A lot of work needs to be done to address some of the detail and to reassure many of the people who have raised concerns in the chamber and beyond. It is a welcome development and, post-May, I look forward to being part of shaping that process and making a difference for many youngsters across Scotland.
I ask the final three speakers to keep their speeches inside three minutes.
I will do my best, Presiding Officer.
I apologise to the chamber and Murdo Fraser for being late this morning. Unfortunately there were serious transport difficulties for those coming in from Fife.
Blame the Executive.
I blame the privatisation of the railways.
I was particularly keen to hear Murdo Fraser's speech because I wanted to know what the Conservatives are proposing through their motion. What do they mean by "skills academies"? Having listened to David McLetchie, I am not sure that they know the answer to that because, instead of telling us, he asked questions—presumably of the Labour Party rather than the Executive—about skills academies. As Murdo Fraser did not cover the point in his opening speech, perhaps the Conservative who is closing can tell us what they mean by "skills academies". What would they be? How many would there be? Would they be stand-alone skills academies or would they be attached to existing schools or colleges? How would they be established? How would people be selected to attend them? Most specifically, what would be the cost?
That is exactly what I asked.
Yes. I am asking the same questions as David McLetchie asked because it is the Conservatives' motion and they should be giving us the answers and telling us what they are proposing. Presumably, the point of lodging Opposition motions is to enable the Opposition parties to tell us what their policies are, not so that they can ask questions about other parties' policies.
I am concerned about skills academies and what they would mean. Although Kenny Macintosh gave a cautious welcome to the Conservatives' motion, he indicated that he is concerned about the possibility that they would result in a two-tier education system. That is a very important point. I do not want us to move back to a two-tier education system.
Scotland has benefited greatly from having a broad-based comprehensive education system that does not close down children's options before they have had an opportunity to determine what they want from their careers and their futures. Under the current selection proposals, I would probably have ended up in a science academy because I was keen on science when I was 12 or 13. Later on, my interest in science disappeared and I moved into social subjects—at university, I took politics and economics. My opportunities might have been closed down by the new approach that is being advocated.
The evidence shows that the so-called choice between city academies and skills academies does not benefit the bottom 20 per cent of pupils. The choice is taken by the more mobile members of society. The least mobile members of society end up being left behind even more by the city academies. When city academies have been linked with skills academies in England, they have proved to be a bit of a disaster. Just before Christmas, a former Labour minister, Karen Buck, decided to move her 12-year-old son away from a city academy to a nearby comprehensive because she was so appalled at the conditions in the city academy.
City academies have failed because they represent an attempt to create in the education system a selection system that will not work. Skills academies are not the right way forward. We must continue to invest in broad-based education in Scotland, from pre-school right through to provision for 18-year-olds.
When I read the motion, I welcomed it because I thought that it would give us an opportunity to hear from the Executive about the proposals that Jack McConnell announced some time ago, which seem to have dwindled into nothing at all. I will be interested to hear whether the minister will provide any explanation of what the First Minister meant.
I begin by saying that Solidarity fully supports comprehensive education, a broad and balanced curriculum and equality of opportunity for all our young people. In my view, dumping young people into further education colleges—which seems to be Jack McConnell's vision—is not the way forward. I have no problem with partnerships between schools and colleges. Indeed, I participated in such a partnership when I was a principal teacher. However, I take issue with not all young people being given the same opportunities. I feel that the proposals that were made were ill thought through and would succeed only in diminishing education rather than tackling the crux of the problems.
The problems are deep rooted and we must consider how we can solve them. Our young people require a broad and balanced education in an appropriate setting. Skills academies will not address the problem of the 14 per cent of young people who are not in education, employment or training, whom the system is failing. In pockets of our communities, including areas in the region that I represent, there are schools that have received bad reports from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and where exam results are poor. That is because insufficient resources are being provided to meet the needs of what are, in some cases, heavily deprived communities. Instead of further tinkering with the system, I would like solutions to be provided to existing problems.
Why do those problems exist? Some young people have a poor sense of belonging. They have difficulties in accessing the curriculum and, in spite of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, their additional support needs are not being identified or supported appropriately. A great deal of research has been done on young people's literacy and numeracy problems and we know that the needs of children with social and emotional problems are not being addressed properly. There is a lack of interaction. The fact that some young people are in classes that are far too big means that there is inequality.
The starting point should be a national minimum standard, under which classes should contain no more than 20 pupils. Along with the provision of well-trained additional support needs teachers who could identify and work with the difficulties that young people experience in school, that would go a long way towards tackling the problems. We should then consider the development of different learning styles. Robin Harper is quite right. We must examine the difficulties that young people have in learning and develop appropriate learning styles properly. We should think about having smaller learning communities, because some of our secondary schools are far too big. In addition, we should definitely restore the community schools programme, because properly integrated community schools are the way forward.
The debate has been welcome and if one strips out much of the party-political stuff, members of all parties have made some extremely thoughtful speeches. I welcome the fact that the First Minister's announcement that we should consider skills academies for Scotland has generated such debate.
There is a national shortage of people who have adequate technical and vocational skills and the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training is a national problem, but it is simplistic to suggest that the second problem can be solved just by providing everyone who falls into the NEET category with technical and vocational training. The debate must be about examining the different dimensions of skills and technical and vocational qualifications.
First, we need to consider how adequate the vocational curriculum in schools is at present. I argue that it is not nearly broad enough because it does not take account of information technology, which it can be argued is both a technical and an academic subject in the working world. As we develop our thinking on skills academies, we must decide what we mean by vocational and technical qualifications. It is not good enough to suggest—as the Tories seemed to do—that skills academies would be where the thickos would go.
We did not say that.
The Conservatives alluded to it.
We must raise the esteem in which vocational and technical qualifications and training are held so that they are on a par with the esteem in which academic subjects are held. We must not use the term "skills academies" as a proxy for places where non-achieving pupils go; if we do that, they will fail.
You have one minute.
In my final minute, I want to talk about an initiative that is under way in Levenmouth in my constituency, where there is a partnership that involves colleges, two local high schools and local businesses. As recently as this week, it met to discuss courses for next year and to free up the curriculum for excellence so that there will be greater scope for a range of courses to improve employability and to meet local needs. Core skills are being examined and work is being done with the colleges on construction and industrial skills. As well as businesses, the group includes representatives of the voluntary sector and of social work, careers and other local authority services. It is not necessary to construct separate academies, which Mike Rumbles has frequently asked about, although that might be appropriate in some cases.
We want to create responsible citizens, effective contributors to society, successful learners and confident individuals. We must ensure that the bright sparks in our schools go on to become bright sparkies or bright graduates.
The debate has been interesting, not least because it has exposed the fault line between the thinking of the Scottish Conservatives and mainstream Scottish opinion. The terms of the motion reveal a hankering for what the Tories see as the good old days of a two-tier education system of grammar schools mostly populated by children from middle-class families and secondary moderns for the hoi polloi.
By contrast, the SNP is totally committed to the comprehensive model of education, which should provide an appropriate mix of academic and vocational educational opportunities. Indeed, that has been a traditional theme in Scottish education for at least 200 years. During the 19th century, the original academies were established up and down the country to teach the knowledge and skills that were needed to fuel the great industrial revolution of that era. The needs of modern economies are even more demanding. In that context, it is right to review the mix that is currently on offer.
Does the member agree that it would be a disaster for Scottish education and our comprehensive system if we tried to copy the way in which skills academies have developed in the English system?
I agree absolutely with Mr Rumbles on this occasion.
The SNP supported the Executive's review of school-college partnerships and supports further development in the area to allow all 14 to 16-year-old pupils a chance to develop vocational skills by opting for FE courses for part of their school week. We are less sanguine about skills academies, not least because of the prospect of conflict and confusion between the role of skills academies in schools and that of local colleges, to say nothing of the potential duplication of spending. Jack McConnell's main aim in advocating skills academies appears to be to re-engage those pupils who are currently switched off from school and who will in due course enter the ranks of the NEET group. As a result, there is a real concern that skills academies would become dumping grounds for disaffected or unruly pupils. Fiona Hyslop referred to the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation. Employers make clear that they are not interested in recruiting people whose standards of literacy and numeracy or academic ability do not allow them to cope with industry training programmes. They rightly point out that trades are not now and never have been careers of last resort.
Labour's skills academies policy bears none of the hallmarks of having been properly thought through. Last year the Education Committee published a report on pupil motivation. One of our main recommendations was that the school curriculum had to be aligned more obviously to future career options, with the linkage between school, education and future employment emphasised. The practical importance of academic subjects needs to be made clearer and careers guidance needs significant reform. The committee came to the conclusion that vocational education opportunities must be made more widely available but that vocational education should not be ghettoised to non-attainers. That would torpedo any chance of improving the status of such courses and increasing the esteem in which they are held.
This has been an interesting debate on what all members regard as an important area of discussion. We are moving into the realm of the pre-election debate, and controversies and debates about new ideas and the new programmes that the different political parties will put forward at the election are beginning to gather pace. However, Fiona Hyslop was right to say that there are a number of underlying common themes. It is widely accepted that many of the initiatives that the Executive has taken over the past period have taken us in the right direction and have addressed the right issue. I would like to focus on one or two themes.
I was interested in the point that Adam Ingram made about the original academies, which was a central and helpful insight into what we are trying to do. We need to try to accommodate two different objectives. The first is to provide skills for industry, to meet the needs of employers and, as various members have said, to ensure that there is parity of esteem between vocational and more academic education. The second is to meet the needs of the bottom 20 per cent of young people who are falling out of the system and, unfortunately, are not succeeding in any realm of life. They do not have basic skills—numeracy and literacy skills or the soft skills that are increasingly required by the economy. It is quite right that both of those issues should be raised in the debate, because they are important.
We need to think about what we have to build on—what is going on already in different parts of Scotland under existing programmes. I was interested in what Christine May said about the position in Levenmouth. I echo her point, as not long ago I visited a learning centre that is attached to a school in Inverclyde, which is used as a base and facility for the rest of the Inverclyde area; no doubt Duncan McNeil has some knowledge of it. There have been successes and different approaches are being tried.
Another issue is whether skills training is for people who followed the academic trail but should not have done so, or whether it is for people who have not thrived at school. The answer is that it is probably for both. Some of the schools that used school-college links in the first instance as a way of dealing with more troublesome children by getting them out of school, so that they could improve their figures, quickly found that that approach was not successful. As well as making available broader educational choices, schools need to tackle issues of maturity and wider social issues.
When I was convener of the Education Committee, I accompanied other members of the committee on a visit to Perthshire; I cannot remember whether Ken Macintosh was with me on that occasion. We looked at work that was being done by a number of organisations, in association with schools, to remotivate people; it was linked with the Columba 1400 centre in Skye. The aim was to engage young people, to involve them in making choices and to get them to see the relevance of education. A much wider issue underpins this debate—how, in different ways and in different circumstances, do we engage, motivate and move forward different young people with different needs by giving them skills and academic and vocational training?
The minister spoke for five minutes at the start of the debate and has spoken for three and a half minutes in his wind-up speech, but in that entire time he has not mentioned the subject of skills academies. Does the Executive have a view on the matter?
Murdo Fraser is well aware that the proposal for skills academies was made by the First Minister in his capacity of leader of the Labour Party, as one of the proposals that that party is making in the run-up to the election. Other parties will need to engage with the issues that are raised in that debate, to examine the proposal and to deal with it in a different way. We have seen the beginnings of that process today. It is clear that the proposal for skills academies that my coalition colleagues have made is somewhat different from the Conservative party's understanding of skills academies.
We must concentrate on the existing system and the movement forward that is being made there. All members will accept that there is no single magic solution to all the problems that exist and that contributions can be made by a series of measures, building on the central strengths of the Scottish education system as the Executive has developed it. Robin Harper was right in his speech—a speech of considerable merit—to concentrate on the potential of the curriculum review to provide opportunities to all young people in all schools in Scotland to deal with some of those issues.
I have no doubt that this will be an on-going debate, as it relates to an important issue. At the heart of it is the ability of our teachers and lecturers and the quality of education in all schools and educational institutions. We need close and developing partnerships between schools and colleges, supported by the best leaders and against the background of the curriculum review. Those are at the heart of the actions that will bring Scotland even greater success in the future. I look forward to a continuation of the debate on this important issue.
The deputy minister made an enormously controversial statement when he suggested that the First Minister was speaking not as First Minister but merely as a member of the Labour Party. We do not take that view. We believe that he was laying down the policy for the coalition and that he was perfectly entitled to do so. What is more, the fact that the deputy minister was totally unable to spell out the detailed implications of the policy on skills academies shows that there may be deep rifts within the coalition; we will bear that in mind for the future.
I say with certainty this morning that this is an extremely important debate. In the past we have lodged two motions calling for the establishment of skills academies, which attracted cross-party support. The first was lodged as long ago as 2002, when our proposal was supported by the current First Minister. I use the word "current" because none of us can anticipate for certain what the outcome of the election will be, although we can live in hope. Only three months ago, the current First Minister pledged that there would be a major initiative to set up 100 centres dedicated to meeting his worthy aspiration. Before endorsing the initiative, I state that if we had been in power, we would have implemented comparable measures at a much earlier stage, but it is better late than never.
Frank McAveety and Christine May made very good speeches. We strongly support parity of esteem. More than 10 years ago, we introduced modern apprenticeships, a scheme that the Labour Government has retained. We also expanded further education colleges. Sadly, participation in such colleges has decreased by 12 per cent since 2001, so a great deal requires to be done.
There are three problems. First, many youngsters are not necessarily fired with enthusiasm by the current curriculum; secondly, vocational qualifications are not always held in sufficiently high esteem; and thirdly, there are skills shortages. Skills academies will go a long way towards meeting the requirements of each subject. We are all aware of the youngsters who are not in education, employment or training. The report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education highlighted again the Executive's failure to improve the performance of the lowest-attaining 20 per cent of Scots pupils.
Skills academies should be presented as an option that many more people will wish to choose as a passport to a job. As to the benefits of vocational education, we are aware of what the First Minister said. He could have improved his rhetoric when he wondered:
"What is the point of teaching French to kids who can't speak English? Vocational courses will motivate kids who are maybe heading off the rails and give them a subject that really interests them."
The point can be made far more positively than that. Vocational education in skills academies could and would provide a good environment in which to improve literacy and numeracy. As Murdo Fraser stated, Gerard Eadie, who employs a large number of people and is a member of the Prince's Trust Scotland, highlighted that the different ethos and clear end-purpose of vocational education is a better backdrop for improving literacy. Vocational education is also better suited to helping people to acquire soft skills.
As regards skills shortages, we all know that finding joiners, electricians and plumbers can be difficult. Plumbers from Poland are welcome in Scotland and have done a great deal to help, but it should not be forgotten that they come here because of the strong technical grounding that they get from their secondary education. The same goes for people from other European countries.
As our economy develops and globalisation continues, giving skills to more people is more essential than ever. I therefore welcome the Executive's somewhat belated action. Skills academies will engage those who are uninterested or unsuited to the current academic curriculum improve employment prospects and reduce the number of people who are not in education, employment or training. That will open up rewarding careers to a great many and help to close the present skills gaps. On an issue of such importance to our countrymen and women, we look forward to MSPs from all parties supporting our motion.