The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-15282, in the name of Angela Constance, on delivering a world-class education system.
14:55
It is a pleasure to open the debate, particularly at the start of a new and exciting year for education in Scotland. Just six days ago, at the international congress for school effectiveness and improvement in Glasgow, the First Minister launched the national improvement framework, and four weeks ago, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published its review of our progress with curriculum for excellence.
We are extremely grateful to the OECD review team for its thoughtful and comprehensive report, entitled “Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective”. We very much welcome the report and its 12 recommendations, which provide us with a strong platform to help us to reach our goal of an excellent and equitable system in which every young person is able to achieve their full potential, irrespective of their background or needs.
It is important to reflect on the many strengths that the report highlights about curriculum for excellence. For example, it states:
“The Curriculum for Excellence ... is an important reform to put in place a coherent 3-18 curriculum”,
which rests on
“widely-accepted tenets of what makes for powerful learning.”
The deputy director of the OECD’s directorate for education and skills, Montserrat Gomendio, said:
“We applaud Scotland for having the foresight and patience to put such an ambitious reform as Curriculum for Excellence in place”.
The OECD report notes a picture of
“positive attitudes, engagement and motivation, partnerships outside the school, supportive ethos and teamwork”,
and notes that
“learners are enthusiastic and motivated, teachers are engaged and professional, and system leaders are highly committed.”
I am particularly heartened by the OECD’s findings that our education is inclusive and that our children are resilient. That is exactly what curriculum for excellence is designed to foster. I assure members that our response to those endorsements, and to all the recommendations, will be bold, focused and resolute.
What parents and other family members around the country will recognise above all is that schools are completely different now from what they were when those people were at school, whether that be 10 or 20 years ago. In my many visits to schools, I am always struck by how confident, articulate and enthusiastic our children and young people are and by how they really own their learning. That is due in part to the freedom that schools have, under curriculum for excellence, to adopt a curriculum that is relevant to learners’ needs and to local contexts and settings and which builds on teachers’ expertise and talents as well as on learners’ interests.
Curriculum for excellence has given us a broader, more flexible and child-focused curriculum, and it will ensure that young people have the opportunity to develop the right range of skills, qualifications and achievements to allow them to flourish. Learning at school is now exciting, stimulating, lively and—crucially—fun. Children are highly motivated and enthusiastic, and teachers are professional, engaged and committed, and all of that is delivering higher standards of achievement.
Last year, there was a record number of passes at higher and advanced higher, and more young people received qualifications that relate to wider skills for life and work. More students are staying on at school until sixth year, fewer are leaving with very low or no qualifications, and all young people can now undertake relevant, work-related learning as part of their curriculum. More than nine out of 10 of last year’s school leavers are now in employment, education or training nine months after leaving school.
Has an analysis been done of the proportion of the one out of 10 who have not ended up in satisfactory destinations who have come from poor or deprived backgrounds?
Ms Lamont knows as well as I do that the relationship between young people not being in positive destinations and their having a poor socioeconomic background is strong. Along with colleagues who work on the fair work, youth employment and skills portfolio, I have worked on moving towards more meaningful, real-time measurement of where individual young people are in terms of positive destinations. The Government is committed to opportunities for all and has led the way across the United Kingdom in ensuring that every 16 to 19-year-old in Scotland who requires a place in education and training is entitled to one.
The OECD noted that
“Scotland has an historic high regard for learning, education and teachers, and the trust it invests in teachers’ professional judgement is an admirable counterbalance to the trends in many systems”.
The quality of our teaching workforce and the excellence of our educational leadership provide the bedrock of our education system. The Scottish Government will continue to do all that we can to support and strengthen teacher professionalism. That is why we are investing in our teachers—in initial teacher education, professional learning and maintaining the numbers of teachers who work in our schools. It is also why we have worked with partners to embed the core ideas of the “Teaching Scotland’s Future” report and will continue to do so through a new strategic board for teacher education.
The cabinet secretary rightly made a point about teacher professionalism. With regard to her new headteacher qualification, does she accept that it is important to recognise the difference between rural schools and small schools in rural local authority areas and larger schools in other local authority areas, and to recognise the difficulties with recruitment that will arise occasionally in rural areas as a result of the requirement for that qualification?
I appreciate that there are particular challenges for rural communities and especially ones with small schools. I discussed that last summer when I attended the first ever islands education summit. We are working closely with partners on how we roll out our commitment to ensuring that, by 2018, all new headteachers possess the headship qualification. Being a headteacher is a professionally and personally demanding role, and we must ensure that all headteachers are supported to achieve the very best in that post, because all the evidence shows us that that is necessary if our children are also to achieve their best.
We have established the Scottish College for Educational Leadership, committed £4 million over the past three years to supporting masters level learning for teachers and created partnerships between universities and local authorities to improve teachers’ experiences in the early part of their careers and provide high-quality learning opportunities for experienced teachers. We are also taking steps to require all new headteachers to be qualified before appointment, as I outlined to Mr Scott.
We are in a good place. However, the OECD’s recommendations give a clear sense of the steps that we can take to improve our system further, specifically to close the attainment gap and deliver excellence and equity in education for all. They include the need to ensure an approach to improving equity that is based on what is known to work well; to strengthen the professional leadership of curriculum for excellence locally; to simplify and clarify core guidance on curriculum for excellence; to further support strong relationships between schools and the wider communities that they serve; and to develop an integrated framework for assessment and evaluation that encompasses all system levels.
The OECD report states that
“CfE is at a ‘watershed’ moment”
and suggests that what is needed now is
“a bold approach that moves beyond system management in recognition of a new dynamic and energy ... generated nearer to teaching and learning.”
I whole-heartedly agree, which is why, after three months of extensive consultation with thousands of teachers, parents, educationists and—crucially—children and young people, we launched the national improvement framework last week. The framework is based on four key priorities for education: raising attainment; closing the attainment gap; improving health and wellbeing; and improving employability. The framework is broad and comprehensive and sets out measures for school improvement, school leadership, supporting teachers and engaging parents.
I want to be clear that our faith in the expertise and judgment of teachers is central in assessing pupil progress and in the continuation of the curriculum for excellence assessment framework. That approach will support an understanding of what works and will therefore enable rapid and significant improvement.
Teacher judgment lies at the heart of the system. From 2017, following pilots later this year, teacher judgment will be informed by a system of new national standardised assessment at primaries 1, 4 and 7 and at secondary 3, which will help teachers and parents to make better, more objective and more consistent judgments about children’s progress towards the different curriculum levels. That teacher judgment data, underpinned by the new assessments, will be collected and published nationally each year to give us, for the first time, a clear and consistent picture of how children and young people are progressing in their learning.
The national improvement framework creates a system that strikes the right balance between supporting the development of children and providing information and accountability about national and local performance. Teachers will be able to use the new assessments during the school year to help to inform their judgments about children and action to support those children. Assessment must be used in a way that not only informs but elicits timely action to improve outcomes for children.
For parents, that will mean clear and meaningful information on their child’s progress that is consistently presented, no matter where they are in the country. For teachers, local authorities and community planning partnerships, it will mean better data for identifying areas for improvement. For the Scottish Government, it will mean that we have clear information to guide national policy. Crucially, it will mean that everyone gets enough information, early enough in children’s education, to pinpoint issues—for individuals, schools, local areas and at a national level—and address them with the right support at the right time.
We can be rightly proud of the success that our education system delivers for most of our children, as evaluated and reported on by a thorough and independent team of experts at the OECD. Those experts have broadly endorsed our approach and given us 12 recommendations for action in areas in which we can make further improvements. In particular, they concluded that we have a great opportunity to lead the world in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework. That is what our new national improvement framework is designed to achieve.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that success is elusive for some children—particularly those from deprived communities. The gap in attainment is narrowing but, if we are to achieve our ambition of delivering a world-class education system for all our children, we must and will do more. The Government has already started work on taking forward the OECD report’s recommendations with vigour and energy. We are considering how to capitalise on the watershed moment that has been identified for curriculum for excellence. We have launched the national improvement framework and are now very much focused on its implementation.
We have put education at the heart of our agenda so that we can create a system that is focused on attainment and achievement and built around delivering equity and excellence and, crucially, aspiration and ambition—in other words, a world-class education system.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the OECD’s review of Scottish education, published on 15 December 2015; welcomes the findings of the review that much in the curriculum for excellence is positive, including the holistic approach, the four capacities, professional engagement, trust in teachers’ professional judgement and enthusiasm for learning and teaching; agrees that it paints a picture of a successful and effective school system, but one in which there are important areas for improvement; acknowledges the recognition of the Scottish Government’s determination to focus on achieving both excellence and equity in the education system; supports work to make the framework of the curriculum for excellence simpler for teachers, parents and carers, reducing bureaucracy and supporting a new sense of dynamism and energy; agrees with the OECD that the National Improvement Framework has the potential to provide a robust evidence base and that it will be a key means of driving work to close the attainment gap and strengthen formative assessment approaches; further agrees that Scotland has an opportunity to become a world leader in providing an integrated framework for evaluation and assessment, and believes that action taken as a result of this report will help to reach the Scottish Government’s goal of an excellent and equitable education system in which every young person across the country is able to achieve their full potential regardless of their family circumstances or the background that they are born into.
Thank you for finishing on time. We are very tight for time today. I remind members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call Iain Gray to speak to and to move amendment S4M-15282.3. You have up to 10 minutes.
15:10
We all want Scotland to have a world-class education system. The Labour amendment is designed to strengthen the Government motion, in which there is little to object to, apart from the usual complacency and a complete absence of any action to be taken towards achieving the end that it purports to be pursuing. No wonder—given that no aspect of this Government’s record moves us closer to having a world-class education system. Indeed, quite the reverse is the case, as after nine years in power the Government has achieved almost 4,500 fewer teachers in our schools, 140,000 fewer students in our colleges, bigger class sizes, although it promised smaller ones, student debt that has doubled, although it promised to abolish it, fewer level 3 and 4 apprenticeships than we had even 10 years ago, falling standards in literacy and numeracy, and the attainment gap between the rich and the rest remaining as bad as ever.
In next year’s budget we will see cuts in spending in real terms to higher education and further education and £500 million being slashed from council budgets—the very councils that have to deliver our school education. One simply cannot claim to be taking education forward if one is clawing back education funding year on year.
Of course, the Government founds its argument now on the OECD review, as the education secretary just did.
Iain Gray mentioned the challenging time for local authority budgets. Has he yet reached a view as to where in the budget he would seek the money and what he would cut to achieve that?
I simply say that to come here and say that one is supporting school education while taking £0.5 billion from local government cannot be an honest approach either to politics or to budgeting.
In summary, the OECD report says that we are above average but that the world is catching up. It says that
“there are declining relative and absolute achievement levels on international data”
and that performance in literacy and numeracy is declining. As I said last week, the Government might be satisfied with damnation by such faint praise, but it is not good enough for Scotland.
Once, we could claim to have a world-leading education in reality and not just as an aspiration. Our system has been a world leader through history, going right back to the world’s first education act of Parliament, which in the 17th century provided for a school in every parish. In the 20th century, Scotland led the way in the creation of comprehensive schools that serve the whole community. Breadth of curriculum, flexibility, equity and high attainment have always been the principles on which we have, in the past, led the world. We have to nurture those values anew in the 21st century.
That is why the pernicious attainment gap matters so much. The OECD report tells us that the gap is increasing, as measured by literacy and numeracy standards. It acknowledges Government initiatives to address that, but it also tells us that there is no strategy to be seen and warns of the danger of what it calls a “scattergun approach.” It is right, because no framework of any kind will close the attainment gap; at best, it will just describe it. In our view, the dangers of the national improvement framework are wildly overstated in the Liberal Democrat amendment. However, the framework will at best only give us information on which we must act or it will be of little value.
The Scottish Government’s attainment challenge fund is simply underresourced and badly targeted. The First Minister reannounced bits of it again yesterday in another new and apparently random initiative. The attainment fund has been announced a couple of million pounds at a time and has been salami sliced into a plethora of projects that are giving every appearance of being made up as they go along. In truth, it looks less like a focused strategy to close the attainment gap and more like a convenient instrument to fill the First Minister’s media grid.
I have talked before about Cochrane Castle and St David’s schools in Johnstone—two schools that share one building in their community. One, however, gets attainment funding but the other does not. Last week I was in Kilmarnock, in East Ayrshire, where a child at one end of a street goes to one school and a child at the other end goes to another. One child will get attainment fund support in their school but the other will not. It makes no sense.
Labour’s fair start funding proposal would fix that. Indeed, East Ayrshire would receive more than £2 million instead of a few thousand pounds for half a dozen primaries. In my constituency of East Lothian, schools would share almost £900,000, instead of not a penny. Nurseries would benefit from our proposal, too. We know—and the OECD report tells us—that the attainment gap is already established by age five.
The attainment gap persists. At the weekend, we saw new figures regarding the attainment gap in senior school. The gap between those from poorer families who achieved three highers or more and those from the richest families who did so grew yet again last year. The OECD report has nothing to say on that, because it only reviewed primary 1 to secondary 3. Today, however, we have placed in the Scottish Parliament information centre an important submission that the OECD received from education expert Jim Scott on the impact of the new national level 3, 4 and 5 exams. Dr Scott showed last year that the new qualifications have narrowed the curriculum and reduced attainment. Ministers dismissed his concerns. Analysis of the second year of the new exams shows that that trend has continued. The teachers whom the education secretary purports to respect so much gave similar warnings and have had to ballot for industrial action just to get a hearing.
Dr Scott showed that, overall, level 3 to 5 enrolment has dropped by 17 per cent compared to standard grade enrolment, and attainment has dropped by 24 per cent. In French and German the drop is almost 50 per cent and in Gaelic it is 60 per cent. At level 5—which was credit level—pass rates have dropped from the low 90s to below 80 per cent.
Will Iain Gray give way?
I have given way to the minister once already.
Dr Scott is very clear on who is suffering. He said that
“less able and middle ranking learners appear to have differentially disappeared from both passes and enrolment.”
Ministers cannot dismiss the figures. They amount to the loss of 92,672 level 3 to 5 enrolments and to 120,035 grade A to C passes at those levels. It is exactly the pupils at the wrong side of the attainment gap who are affected.
That threatens the historical progress that the education secretary has claimed as her own. It is true that there has been progress. In 1965, when comprehensive education was introduced, 70 per cent of pupils left school with no qualifications at all; reforms such as raising the leaving age and introducing standard grades took that figure to less than 5 per cent. However, the truth is that we never completely pushed comprehensive education through to senior years, and the figures show that curriculum for excellence has created an unintended narrowing of the curriculum there, too.
A world-class education system must have more, not fewer, paths for young people, and there must be vocational paths as well as educational paths. It is time to make that reform of senior phase, encompassing colleges, universities, learning hubs and work experience as well as schools. Such a reform would properly reflect the recommendations of the Wood report and it would learn from systems elsewhere—for example, those in Germany and Finland. It would be built on a new parity of esteem between academic and vocational attainment, and a new trust between sectors. It would require proper reinvestment in colleges, so that they can re-establish their central position in a world-class system of education and training.
Instead of reducing and narrowing the qualifications of thousands of young Scots, we should seek ways to broaden and raise attainment. Perhaps we should create a Scottish graduation certificate, which could, if done in a way that was properly resourced, pull together and recognise exam results, vocational training, work experience, structured voluntary work, foundation apprenticeships, and Open University young applicants in schools scheme courses.
The OECD reports calls this time “a watershed”, and it is right to do so. To make best use of this moment, we must have the honesty to admit and to face up to the problems in our education system, the political will to provide the resources that we need and the courage to push through curriculum for excellence to the senior phase. Only then can we claim to be delivering a world-class education system. One matter is for sure: cuts and complacency will not do it.
I move amendment S4M-15282.3, to leave out from “and strengthen” to end and insert:
“if, and only if, adequate and effectively targeted resources are made available; commits the Scottish Government to introducing a 50p income tax rate on those who earn more than £150,000 per annum as soon as that power is available to it; further commits the government to use these resources to provide Fair Start Funding, which would provide £1,000 per annum for every pupil with free school meal eligibility to be used at head teachers’ discretion on measures to close the attainment gap, and believes that a reform of the senior phase in secondary schools is now required to create a comprehensive education system encompassing schools, colleges, universities, the third sector and the workplace, as well as a resolution to the unintended consequences on both enrolment and attainment of the new national 4 and 5 qualifications.”
15:20
Aspiring to a world-class education system is absolutely where our sights should be set. That is not to denigrate the work of those who work in our schools, colleges, universities and other parts of the education system. Many are pioneers who are delivering exceptionally high-quality education to those who are in their care, so I pay tribute to them for their efforts. However, the issue is about how we build from that base, while recognising the challenges that are set out in the OECD report, as Iain Gray said, and those which are presented by an ever more globalised world in which change is remorseless and rapid.
Our young people need the skills to equip them not just to cope, but to thrive. That, in part, was why curriculum for excellence was developed to provide the depth, breadth and richness of learning that allow successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to emerge. However, the evidence suggests that, all too often, people from disadvantaged backgrounds are still not able to fulfil their potential. By the time they arrive in formal education, the gap has opened up for many and is never successfully narrowed—far less closed.
Ministers are right to identify closure of the attainment gap as a priority—albeit that they are eight years into their time in office. The question is whether its approach is likely to be effective. Indeed, as Iain Gray said, academics at the University of Dundee have warned that we are going in the wrong direction in certain respects.
Clearly, closing the attainment gap and achieving greater equity of outcomes is not something that can or should rest with our education system—crucial though it undoubtedly is. That said, ministers have presented the national improvement framework as the centrepiece of their strategy, and improving school leadership, teacher professionalism, parental involvement and performance information are all sensible and necessary components of any such strategy.
Where I have a problem—the minister will not be surprised by this—is in the determination to reintroduce national testing in our primary schools. That move, whose sole advocates were the Scottish Conservatives, goes against the very ethos of curriculum for excellence. Assessment of pupils is, of course, at the heart of good teaching. Teachers do it daily—they observe what happens in the classroom, mark pupils’ work, glean information from the standardised tests and have, crucially, an in-depth knowledge of the young person as an individual. The Scottish education system has no shortage of such data—particularly at classroom and school levels. The focus should be on making better use of that wealth of information.
National literacy and numeracy tests simply will not provide a rounded evaluation of student learning. The risk of error is high, but the information will inform Government policy and decisions. Whether or not ministers believe that they are sanctioning teaching to the test or league tables, those are the likely—perhaps inevitable—consequences of introducing national testing in primary schools.
Teaching unions, individual teachers, parent-teacher councils and parents are all expressing concern. A one-size-fits-all approach that one education expert recently denounced as “hopelessly blunt” has also been described by teaching unions as “a backwards step”. However, it is not all that far backwards because, not so long ago, the former education secretary, Mr Russell, described the previous national testing regime and its league tables as “Thatcherite”. I recall the Scottish National Party hailed the scrapping of those Tory tests by the Labour-Lib Dem Executive; it even sought to claim credit for it.
Of course, the cabinet secretary prayed in aid the recent OECD report, but even there there are warnings about the dangers of crude testing systems. Historically, with education reform,
“outcomes-based learning is succeeded by high stakes testing ... and a broad but inconsistently interpreted curriculum gives way to a prescriptive and more basic one.”
For all the First Minister and the education secretary’s assurances, the Scottish Liberal Democrats remain unconvinced by the case for national tests either to help to close the attainment gap or to achieve a world-leading education system. That scepticism may partly be informed by what has happened with ministerial reassurances on early learning and childcare. Under pressure from my party, last summer the Government promised to deliver free provision for 27 per cent of two-year-olds from the poorest backgrounds. However, new figures show that only 7 per cent of such children currently benefit.
On the twin aim of raising attainment and closing the gap, it is interesting that the Royal Society of Edinburgh appears to question whether the two are compatible. The RSE said that
“universal approaches ... aimed at raising attainment may do so but in a way that does not lead to greater equity”,
and went on to say that increased parental involvement, for example, “could increase the gap”. I presume that the society made the point to underscore what it describes as a need for
“re-prioritisation and re-deployment of existing education expenditure”.
Ministers will point to the attainment fund and its recent extension to additional local authority areas, but to do so will still rather miss the point: eleven councils remain ineligible for funding, despite the fact that children in need are to be found in communities the length and breadth of Scotland. To have ministers pick and choose postcodes flies in the face of the reality of poverty and need. That is why Scottish Liberal Democrats think, as Save the Children does, that the right approach is a pupil premium that links funding to individual children in need, as happens south of the border, thanks to the previous coalition Government.
In addition, the attainment fund must be seen in the context of Mr Swinney’s brutal cut of £500 million from local authority budgets for next year. Orkney Islands Council had been preparing for a cut of 1.6 per cent; the reality is an eye-watering 4.3 per cent cut and a settlement that the convener described as “wholly unacceptable”.
Given that education accounts for about half of what councils do in budgetary terms, the cuts are likely to fall most heavily on the education budget. That torpedoes the Scottish National Party’s claims about prioritising education and leaves councils to carry the can for the Government’s failure to put its money where its mouth is.
The ambition of creating a world-class education system is one that I whole-heartedly support, just as I support the objective of enabling every child and young person to fulfil their potential. However, I question whether the SNP’s obsession with a return to national standardised testing, its underachievement on early learning and its cuts to council funding are a recipe for achieving those aims.
I move amendment S4M-15282.1, to leave out from “acknowledges” to end and insert:
“notes the OECD’s warnings about the risks associated with crude testing systems; believes that the Scottish Government’s plans to reintroduce national testing has the potential to lead to teaching to the test, high stakes testing, league tables and a system akin to that rightly abolished by the Scottish Government in 2003, which the SNP described as ‘Thatcherite crass and cursory’; considers that national testing risks undermining the work of teachers and is incompatible with the spirit of the curriculum for excellence and, therefore, joins unions, individual teachers, parent teacher councils and parents in opposing this proposal; recognises that improving early learning for those from the most deprived backgrounds is key to closing the attainment gap; is deeply disappointed, therefore, that the school census published in December 2015 showed that only 7.3% of two-year-olds were registered for early learning and childcare; notes that this is well short of the 27% promised for this year by the Scottish Government, highlighting the need to focus on implementation of this flagship policy and raising questions about its ability to deliver its further promises in this area; welcomes the Scottish Government’s decision to dedicate more resources to tackling the attainment gap; however, considers that the Attainment Scotland Fund will still make a difference only in selected areas, ignoring the needs of children facing poverty in 11 local authorities, and continues to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a pupil premium that targets funding at individual school-age children in need, wherever they may live, as a means of helping close the attainment gap, enabling each child to achieve its potential and delivering an excellent education system.”
15:26
This is unusual: the Conservatives are supporting the Government’s motion today. The reason is that the Government has accepted the OECD’s recommendations, acknowledged that there are areas for improvement and expressed its determination to focus on excellence and equity, which will involve not just considering councils and teachers but ensuring that no child is left behind, so that, as I would like, every child can
“achieve their full potential regardless of their family circumstances or the background that they are born into.”
We fully accept that. It makes a nice change to have a Government motion that is constructive and considers the facts.
It will come as no surprise to Iain Gray that we are not supporting a 50p tax rate. It will come as even less of a surprise to Liam McArthur that we are not supporting his amendment, given the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to testing.
I ask the cabinet secretary to clarify when she sums up her point about publication of information. I listened carefully to what she said, but I am still not sure whether it will be mandatory on every local authority to use the new assessment tests in the national framework. There seems to be a bit of doubt in that regard, so clarity would be helpful. However, we very much welcome the Government’s reintroduction of national assessment in primary and secondary schools. As I said, the main point is that no child should be left behind.
On literacy and numeracy, the new teachers will be welcome, but another issue is the time that is allocated to literacy training in teacher training colleges. Freedom of information requests have been made over the years by Stewart Maxwell and others, and we have learned that as few as 25 hours are spent on literacy training in Scottish teacher training colleges, compared with an average of 90 hours in English colleges. When we consider the teacher training programme, it would be enormously helpful if the Government committed to giving teachers the tools and the support that they need to do the job that we expect them to do.
We also welcome the investment of £100 million for the attainment fund, but we want to make sure that the money is effectively spent. We would like to see the attainment fund money go directly to schools that have a high proportion of children from socially deprived backgrounds, so that individual pupils with poor attainment are identified and supported in order to improve their attainment levels.
If we look at the OECD report, despite its 180 pages—which I did look at—we see that it has picked out quite a few figures from the Audit Scotland report, which I have highlighted many times. My main concern is in the transition from primary 7 to secondary 2. Attainment is not perfect but it is not that bad between primary 4 and primary 7. However, between primary 7 and secondary 2 something strange happens in Scottish education and attainment dips dramatically.
Scottish adolescents are also less likely to report liking school than are students in many other countries, and liking drops sharply in secondary school, according to the OECD.
The figures show that in order to close the gap we need to increase the percentage of pupils who are performing “well” and “very well” at any given level, but that percentage is falling. It fell between 2011 and 2013, with the proportion of primary 7 pupils who were performing well going down by 6 per cent in those two years, and it also went down in secondary 2. However the dramatic difference was that in 2013 in primary 7, 66 per cent performed well, while in secondary 2 only 42 per cent did so. That is too huge a reduction not to take a significant look at it. The figures were for numeracy.
In respect of reading, there is also fall. In primary 4, primary 7 and secondary 2, there was between 2012 and 2014 an overall fall in performing well, and there was also a drastic fall between primary 7 and secondary 2. If the money is to be spent wisely, we have to understand what that has happened—why there is such a deterioration in performance between primary 7 and secondary 2 and why performance has deteriorated in the last couple of years.
We all want pupils with low attainment to do better and we all hope to close the attainment gap, but I do not think that any of us want standards for those from deprived backgrounds to fall. People from the least deprived backgrounds, as well as those from the most deprived backgrounds, are performing less well.
I appreciate that my time is almost up, Presiding Officer, so I will leave it there.
Thank you. We are extraordinarily tight for time today, so in order to protect the closing speakers in this debate, less would be more. You have up to six minutes, please.
15:33
Is it me? Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Sorry. I call George Adam, to be followed by John Pentland.
You have already bitten into my time, Presiding Officer.
Like many of my colleagues and fellow MSPs, I became involved in politics—as I have said in previous debates on education—to try to make a difference in our community. Education is the cornerstone of that. It is the foundation of all those desires to change lives. However, changing lives is not easy, and that is why it is important for us to put in place a world-class education system that enables us as a nation to close the attainment gap, thus giving each child the best possible start in life and improving the life chances of our sons and daughters.
The OECD report highlights many positive areas in the Scottish education system, including the fact that our schools are highly inclusive and our levels of academic achievement are above international averages and are distributed evenly. The report stated that
“There are clear upward trends in attainments and positive destinations. Over 9 in 10 of school leavers entered a positive follow-up destination in 2014, and nearly two-thirds of school leavers continue on in education. There has been a continuous upward trend in recent years.”
A key point that I have taken from the report is that the OECD shares the Scottish Government’s view that we have a great opportunity to lead the world in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework. I firmly believe that the framework will play an important role in the drive to close the attainment gap and continually improve Scottish education.
I whole-heartedly share the First Minister’s view that improving a child’s life through education is the most important thing that we can do as a Government. Although the OECD report is positive in noting the many strengths of our education system, like the First Minister it notes the areas that need improvement.
In launching the new national improvement framework, the First Minister stated:
“Despite the progress we are making, nobody can be comfortable living in a country where different levels of wealth create such a significant gap in the attainment levels—and therefore the life chances—of so many children. That’s why the Scottish Government is taking concerted action now.”
I feel that her point goes to the heart of the debate, and what we are trying to do is highlighted in the report. Children in Scotland are performing well, and we are still producing the doctors and scientists of the future. We are getting a lot right, but we need to do more—and quickly—to support all children in Scotland and raise attainment across the board.
The national improvement framework allows the Government, local authorities, teachers and parents to quickly see where there are issues and move swiftly to address them. Although teacher judgment will always be at the heart of the system, we will see new national standardised assessments for pupils in P1, P4, P7 and S3. The Scottish Government believes that, to be able to act swiftly, we need to understand whether what we are doing now is working. Although we have a form of standardised assessment already monitoring children’s progress in local authorities, those assessments have not been conducted consistently and, as a result, there is a lack of information on overall performance at both national and local levels. We need to identify where we need to improve and get on with doing the hard work.
The OECD report makes 12 recommendations for actions to improve Scotland’s education system across areas such as leadership in schools, issues presented by existing data sources and complexities around curriculum for excellence. However, all the indications are that we are already working towards improvements in those areas. Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Educational Institute for Scotland, said:
“The OECD Report paints a largely positive picture of Scottish education and the ongoing implementation of Curriculum for Excellence.”
The improvements are being achieved and will continue to be achieved by the many initiatives that have been set up and funded by the Scottish Government. It is currently investing £1.5 million a year in the read, write and count campaign to ensure that every child in P1 to P3 has access to library books and education materials to improve early literacy and numeracy. Further investment will see more than £1 million over three years, from 2014 to 2017, in national and local numeracy hubs to raise standards and share best practice in the teaching and learning of maths and numeracy at all levels.
That is all on the back of the many achievements that the Scottish Government has already made in education. The pupil teacher ratio is the same as last year. However, not resting on that, on 3 January this year the Scottish Government announced that funding of more than £2 million is being made available to train an extra 260 teachers—60 primary and 200 secondary teachers—next year.
I could go on all day about the good work that the Scottish Government has achieved in education, but it is important to look at where we have come from, how we got here and how we have improved. We know that 40 per cent of pupils from the most deprived 20 per cent of areas are gaining at least one higher—the figure is up from 23 per cent in 2007—and that a record percentage of young people are in work, education or training after leaving school. In 2006-07, only 87 per cent of school leavers were in positive destinations. The OECD 2012 programme for international student assessment survey shows that we have halted the decline in Scotland’s relative position in maths and reading that began under Labour, and, since 2009—under this Government—we have seen improvements against other OECD countries.
Are we getting everything right in Scotland? No. It would be foolish to say so and to think so. However, is this Government committed to delivering a world-class education system? I would say yes. Just as the Scottish Government has worked in partnership with other organisations and everyone else in education, it is time for us all to work together in this chamber, as we did for curriculum for excellence, for the benefit of every child in Scotland.
15:35
I believe that we are having this debate today not through the Scottish Government’s choice but as a reaction to criticisms of its education policy. It is easy to see why the SNP is under attack. Young people from wealthier families are twice as likely to go to university as those from poorer backgrounds; more than 6,000 Scottish children leave primary school unable to read properly; and teacher numbers are now at their lowest level for 10 years.
Finally, after nearly nine years in power and nine years of Scottish Labour pressure, the Scottish National Party has admitted that it needs to up its game. If it gets back into power, it will make education its focus—unless, of course, it decides to have another referendum.
What do we get? We get a framework that is designed for soundbites, that does not address the gap between the rich and the poor, that offers little by way of real change and that, for its big idea, has the reintroduction of national testing. There was an outcry from the professionals about that, and rightly so, because they thought that they had got rid of unhelpful league tables a decade ago. What we will now have is called standardised testing and definitely not—as the First Minister insisted in the newspapers—league tables. However, on January 6 the First Minister tweeted that the percentage of pupils who achieved curriculum levels in literacy and numeracy would be published by school. How will that work? How will the SNP stop people turning published results into league tables? Perhaps the cabinet secretary can explain that when she closes the debate.
Scotland has dropped down the European education league tables but, alongside the bad things that are happening, the latest OECD report highlights some potentially good things. It says that curriculum for excellence could be the basis of a good system but needs to be strengthened, and that there needs to be a more rigorous strategy that gives local authorities a stronger role. That might be a tad more difficult to achieve, given that councils are getting hammered by SNP cuts. The report also notes the poor literacy of primary and secondary school students, and the
“decline in relative and absolute achievement levels in mathematics”.
Since the OECD report’s publication, we have heard that pupils from well-off backgrounds were seven times more likely to get three As at higher than those from poorer areas, while 14 local authorities had fewer than five poorer pupils achieve three As. Enrolment in national 3 to 5 subjects has dropped by nearly 17 per cent since the introduction of curriculum for excellence, which means that pupils are doing fewer subjects. Overall attainment in those subjects has dropped by 24 per cent. Enrolment and attainment in modern languages are in steep decline, to the point where some subjects may no longer be viable in Scotland.
It is clear that if it is to rise again the Scottish education system, which used to be held up as a model for others, needs some TLC—it has not been getting that recently. We need to make education the first priority. Instead of just paying lip service to it, we need to invest in the early years and education as our most important economic policy. We need to tackle the vicious circle of poverty and educational underperformance, and we need radical action to change the way in which we fund education so that opportunity and achievement are not dependent on wealth.
Funding to tackle the attainment gap should be targeted, but not through the blunt instrument of providing grants to some schools and not others. It is a nonsense that one school can get funding while another school next door gets nothing, even though both have pupils who are suffering from deprivation.
That is why Scottish Labour wants to set up a fair start fund that will give an extra £1,000 for every child from a poor background in primary school, and £300 in nursery school. That would ensure that attainment funding was based on need. Like the Labour Government in Wales, we want that funding to be managed by headteachers, because they are the people who are best placed to decide which of the available measures will work best in their school with their children. That would be a permanent arrangement, not just a temporary sticking plaster.
If education is to be a national priority, we should not be viciously cutting the budgets of those who provide education, which is not only unfair but very short-sighted. To neglect the education of our young people is to neglect the future of our economy. For many reasons, education should be our priority. There should not be just lip service and sound bites on education; there should be real action to make a difference.
I call Gordon MacDonald, to be followed by Cara Hilton—up to six minutes, please.
15:45
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I apologise for my voice, which I hope will last for six minutes.
Scotland has a fine history of achievement in education, starting with the establishment of church schools in the middle ages and of five universities by 1600—compared with only two south of the border. In 1696, Scotland passed the world’s first national education act, which provided for a school in every parish and a fixed salary for the teacher, with financial arrangements through a property tax to pay for it. The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 took control of the education system from the churches and handed it to local authorities. That was followed by the establishment of a single external examination system for Scotland in 1888. Scotland was then at the forefront of innovation in education.
More than a century later, international comparisons were introduced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development through the programme for international student assessment in the three areas of reading, mathematics and science. In 2012, 65 countries took part in the international comparison, and the Scottish results highlighted that levels of academic achievement here are above international averages in science and reading and close to the average in maths.
In science, Scotland has been above the OECD average in each PISA round since 2006. In reading, Scotland’s performance in 2012 was above the OECD average, as it was in 2009, after falling under the Labour-Lib Dem Executive between 2003 and 2006. Scotland’s relative position compared with that of OECD countries and the rest of the UK has improved since 2009, with a greater number of countries performing significantly less well than Scotland and fewer countries whose performance is similar to that of Scotland. In maths, the OECD found that Scotland’s performance was similar to the average for all countries, and there was clear evidence that the decline in Scotland’s performance between 2003 and 2006 had not continued. Again, Scotland’s position in 2012 improved, with fewer countries outperforming Scotland and greater numbers performing significantly below Scotland. That was the position in 2012, and we await the 2015 PISA scores, which are due out later this year.
The report “Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective”, which was published in December 2015, gives us an indication of progress. It states in its overview:
“Learners are enthusiastic and motivated, teachers are engaged and professional, and system leaders are highly committed. As many as 9 in 10 inspections report improvement in confidence, engagement, staying on in school and national qualifications over the recent past, broadly coincident with the implementation of CfE in schools.”
The report highlighted that there was much “to be positive about”, that there was a high level of social inclusion and that a large majority—nine out of 10—of students feel positive about their school and teachers.
Part of the reason why students feel positive about their school might be that the number of pupils who were reported as being in schools of good or satisfactory condition increased from 61 per cent in April 2007, just prior to the first SNP Government taking office, to 85 per cent in April 2015. The reason might also be that the latest national performance report shows that 90 per cent of schools were graded satisfactory or better, including 69 per cent that were graded as good, very good or excellent. As a result, students across Scotland achieved a record 156,000 higher passes in 2015, with the number of advanced higher passes increasing by 4 per cent to record levels.
Although there has been progress since 2007, that does not mean that there are no challenges facing Scottish education. Last autumn, at the Wester Hailes education centre in my constituency, the First Minister outlined her twin priorities of improving attainment for all children and tackling the attainment gap between children in deprived areas and those in better-off areas. The £100 million attainment Scotland fund to improve literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing for primary school pupils was extended to a further 57 schools, including three in my constituency, taking the total number of primary schools that are benefiting from the fund to more than 300.
The December 2015 OECD report states:
“Scotland has been among the OECD countries with the most equal scores of mathematics achievements among 15-year-olds and the spread by socio-economic background in Scotland is narrower than across the OECD as a whole. A third of disadvantaged students were identified as ‘resilient’ in 2012, meaning those from the bottom quarter in status terms who perform in the top quarter of international performance. This is higher than the OECD average of 25%.”
EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said that the report
“confirms previous data that indicates that Scottish schools and levels of pupil attainment compare well both internationally and with other countries within the UK”
and that it
“paints a largely positive picture of Scottish education”.
Will you draw to a close, please?
As the OECD recognised, curriculum for excellence has the ability to deliver a world-class education system for all, putting Scotland once again at the forefront of innovation in education.
15:51
We all want Scotland to have an education system to be proud of. We want a Scotland in which every child in every community can achieve their true potential at school and in life. Nothing is more important than ensuring that every child gets a fair start. Today, the SNP Government is keen to highlight the positive aspects of the OECD report, but the fact remains that the achievement gap between the most and least deprived children is continuing to grow under the SNP’s watch and that, so far, its solutions have fallen well behind what is needed to end the inequality in our classrooms.
We must use this Parliament’s powers to change people’s lives, to reshape our country and to transform life chances so that opportunity and success at school, at work and in life are determined by hard work, effort and talent, and not by who someone’s parents are or how much they earn.
Iain Gray talked about the attainment fund that the Scottish Government has set up. In my Dunfermline constituency, two schools are benefiting from the fund, yet in every nursery, primary and secondary school in my constituency there are children and families from poorer backgrounds who need extra support. One of the schools in my constituency that is receiving attainment fund support is Inzievar primary school in Oakley, which shares a campus with Holy Name primary school. They use the same gym hall, assembly hall, library and playground, yet Holy Name gets no funding to close the attainment gap.
That is why our amendment calls once again for us to be more ambitious and to use the powers that are coming to Holyrood to invest more in the children who are being left behind. We need to ensure that every child from a poorer family gets a fair start in life through a fair start fund that is based on need and not on what school children go to. We need to make support available not just to schools but to nurseries, too. Across Scotland, we are asking people to take a fresh look at Scottish Labour. Maybe the cabinet secretary will take a fresh look at our plans to give every child a fair start at nursery and school.
The Liberal Democrat amendment mentions the importance of pre-school provision in improving outcomes for children from more deprived backgrounds. That is important, too, because we know that the attainment gap begins well before children start school. By the age of three, 15 per cent of children already have speech and language difficulties, with children from the most deprived areas being more than twice as likely to have issues. By the same age, children from deprived backgrounds are already nine months behind on average development and readiness for school, and on starting school there is already a 14 per cent development gap between the most and least advantaged children and a 16 per cent gap in vocabulary.
All the evidence shows that children who start school with those early development difficulties are much more likely to fall behind other children in their attainment at every stage of the education system, so it is vital that we get it right for every child in the early years, yet in December 2015, as Liam McArthur said, just 7.3 per cent of two-year-olds were registered for early learning and childcare. That is well short of the 27 per cent that was promised. There is also evidence that many children across Scotland are missing out not just on the free childcare for two-year-olds but on the free places that are available for three and four-year-olds.
The SNP will go into the election in May promising parents a doubling of pre-school hours, yet it is still unable to deliver the hours that were promised in policies that are already in place, never mind saying how the 30 hours will be delivered or paid for.
Research by the fair funding for our kids campaign has found that as many as one in five children is missing out on their free place, and the doubling of free hours could make the situation even worse by reducing the number of spaces available in council nurseries by as much as 40 per cent. That falls into line with what the commission for childcare reform said in the summer, when it found that many parents across Scotland are unable to access the 600 hours and concluded that the focus on delivering the policy was
“at the expense of broader childcare provision”.
Given the fact that only 15 per cent of councils in Scotland have enough capacity to meet the childcare needs of working parents, parents across Scotland who want to work and make a better life for their families need much more than a promise of free hours. We need a radical overhaul of childcare so that it is affordable, flexible and available for children of all ages where and when parents need it.
In its briefing for today’s debate, Save the Children highlights its excellent “Read on. Get on.” campaign, which has Scottish Labour’s support. It is unacceptable that Scotland’s poorest children are already struggling with language and literacy when they start school, and that many of the same children leave primary school unable to read well. There must be much more emphasis in the national framework on the importance of pre-school intervention in closing the language gap and ensuring that every single child has the support that they need to meet key milestones in early language and literacy before they start primary school.
We cannot look at education policy in isolation, and members from across the chamber have already referred to the budget cuts that will hit our councils. Certainly, those cuts will not help us in our mission to close the gap. Cuts to council budgets will hit our schools, early years services and measures that are being taken to close the gap. In Fife, where the council already had a £21 million budget shortfall to make up in the coming financial year, the additional cuts that were announced in the budget before Christmas mean that the council will need to make a further £17 million of savings.
In the chamber, we have quite rightly heard many attacks on the Tory austerity agenda and its impact on Scotland. Right now, in the communities that I represent in Fife and in communities right across Scotland, the austerity agenda is not being imposed just by the Tories; it is being imposed by Holyrood, too. Our children and young people should not be paying the price of cuts, and they should certainly not be paying the price of austerity. Cuts to our schools, cuts to our colleges, cuts to our universities and cuts to our youth work services are not a route to educational success.
I see that I am running out of time. If the Government is serious about making our education system world class once again, action is needed now to protect our education budgets and to give our councils a fair funding deal.
15:57
For those of us who are not experts, the OECD report can be a challenging read at times. It is positive about Scotland’s achievements to date and the potential for Scotland to be a world leader in education. It describes the curriculum for excellence as being at a watershed moment and says that 10 solid years of patient work has taken place, which has presented us with the opportunity to move the agenda on to a new phase
“beyond system management in a new dynamic nearer to teaching and learning”.
The report says that we need to strengthen what it calls the middle area, which involves networking and collaboration. I take that to mean that we need more engagement among professionals up and down the country, and among education authorities, so that we can truly bring about the improvements that we need and begin to close the various gaps that concern us. Principal among those is the attainment gap, but I hope that we can also do something about the opportunity gaps that exist in the system.
The report acknowledges a number of improvements and particularly mentions Scotland’s
“above international averages in science and reading”.
It says that our achievement levels are spread fairly equally, that a high number of students from the lowest socioeconomic status groups perform in the top quarter of international achievers, that our schools are inclusive and that there are clear upward trends in attainment. Of our school leavers, 90 per cent are entering a positive destination, and such levels have been continuously improving in recent years.
Improvements are also noted in relation to pupils’ positive attitudes towards their schools and teachers. There has been a welcome drop in negative behaviour such as smoking, alcohol abuse and general disruptive behaviour. They are all on the decline, thankfully.
There is evidence of an improving picture of current performance in a number of areas. A higher number of our young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are getting better qualifications, and almost double the number we saw in 2007 are getting at least one higher. We have record exam results, with numbers of passes in highers and advanced highers rising, and we have the highest number of youngsters ever applying to go to university, with a huge 50 per cent increase in the number of those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
More needs to be done, of course, but good progress is being made. What then lies beyond the watershed that the report says that we are at?
At the heart of this, according to my understanding, is how we assess and evaluate and how that leads us towards improvement. The report applauds our teachers for their ingenuity in devising a variety of methods to collect information but says that there is
“concern that insufficient use is made of assessment information to support children’s learning progress and curriculum development”
and that too many teachers are still
“unclear what should be assessed in relation to the Experiences and Outcomes”,
all of which serves to blur
“the connection between assessment and improvement.”
In other words, if we are all measuring things differently, we have little chance of concluding anything meaningful from those measurements and we have less ability to claim that improvements are evident across the system.
We need a robust and consistent evidence base to help us with our assessment methods and the OECD report supports the view that the national improvement framework has the potential to deliver that for us. Standardised assessment gives us the chance to move forward from this watershed, to provide a clearer and more concise narrative in the assessment process and to begin the important next phase in the life of curriculum for excellence.
Keir Bloomer’s comment that measurement systems in themselves do not raise standards or close gaps is spot on. However, measurement systems should provide us with consistency in the assessment process, from which I hope we can make informed judgments that are more reliable than anything that we currently have.
The First Minister has made it clear that using new standardised assessments in P1, P4, P7 and S3 will help our teachers to form the crucial judgments about the progress that our children are making and to provide the required support when it is most needed. Offering parents access to that information means that we can extend the scope of interest to the wider family and the crucial role that they play in our children’s education.
As usual, we will rely heavily on the good services that we obtain from Education Scotland to drive the process forward. Education Scotland has been in the vanguard of curriculum for excellence for many years and I know that many colleagues in that organisation are totally committed to improving excellence in education.
I will add a little note of caution in winding up. As Keir Bloomer said, systems and processes do not in themselves do very much. They act as enablers to help us to get things right and we must still work hard to improve things. Closing the attainment gap between our wealthiest and our poorest communities in the next decade will be an amazing achievement if we manage to do it, but an opportunity gap still exists.
Members might recall the story last year about the young student from Possilpark who achieved all the necessary qualifications for medical school at four of Scotland’s finest universities but was still refused entry. Attainment and opportunity are two very different things; I am glad that our universities are aware of that and are doing something about it through their reach initiative.
Closing the attainment gap will surely help many more talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We have a duty to make that possible for all our young people in Scotland and I hope that the new framework will take us closer to that goal than we have ever been before.
16:03
We will continue to be challenged as individuals and as an educational system by the youngsters of today. Most youngsters do not carry a pen or a pencil. That is very different from my time as a youngster. However, most have an intelligent phone and are perhaps more adept at operating the on-screen keyboard on that than they are at using a pen or a pencil.
The modern world is very different from the world in which my grandfather started teaching 135 years ago, and it will keep changing. In 1881, my grandfather was a pupil-teacher in Bo’ness. By 1890 he was a schoolteacher in Eyemouth, and in 1900 he had his own school in a rural location in the Black Isle. The school photograph for that year shows that the majority of pupils were barefoot. At lunch time, they depended on my grandmother preparing soup for the school lunch, which was made from the vegetables that the pupils took to school.
When my grandfather retired from teaching in 1926, he had achieved the lofty heights of a fellowship of the Educational Institute of Scotland. The experience of teachers and pupils in my grandfather’s school was very different from the experience today.
Today, other members of my family are teachers. My niece Morag teaches in England. She has taught in the public and private sectors, and she looks with some envy at aspects of the Scottish system. My nephew Jamie is based in Denmark and is married to a Dane, with a Danish family. The educational system there is also very different, and it is not without its difficulties. Because of a dispute with the unions, the Government in Denmark chose to lock out all the teachers for more than a month. My nephew did not enjoy that much.
I will give another illustration of how things change. When I was a student studying mathematics in the 1960s, in my intermediate honours year, one of my digs landlady’s friends sent their 12-year-old to get help with his maths. He was studying topology at school, but we at university had yet to reach that subject. We cannot expect the past to be repeated in the future.
Although the OECD report is about the formal education system, we should not imagine that all education takes place in school. It is important that parents and relatives are equally equipped to answer the intelligent questions that our youngsters inevitably come up with. A couple of months ago, I did a little experiment with my four-year-old goddaughter. She asked about a rock crystal that we had, and I explained crystals by showing her salt crystals, dissolving them in water and then evaporating the water on the stove. She was fascinated by that and we had a discussion. I hope that that is typical of discussions that are going on across Scotland.
One point in the OECD report that I was taken with, particularly because of my parliamentary constituency, is the comment that
“Scotland enjoys one of the smallest proportions of low performers among its immigrant students.”
That is important to me because, on average, the four secondary schools in my constituency have 20 languages spoken in them. At Peterhead academy, the number has just become 28, with the addition of Hungarian. It is not new in the north-east of Scotland that we interact with the rest of the world and that language is an issue. As long ago as 1853, the post office directory listed three foreign consulates in Peterhead.
Of course, that is both a challenge and an opportunity. In some of our schools, I have seen immigrants successfully passing on aspects of their culture and, more critically, their language to the local population. In return, the locals have taught those who have come to our community how to speak Doric—only a minority of the people who are in the chamber are likely to be able to do that. Education is and will always remain a work in progress. Informal learning is important, and it is important to provide opportunities for it.
The OECD report refers to international examples, including the Ontario teacher leadership and learning programme and the Alberta initiative for school improvement. That gives a fascinating insight into what can be done elsewhere. We have to accept that there is no single answer and that, actually, the most important thing is that those who are engaged in education are committed to picking up and trying new ideas.
There is no single idea. If there was a magic bullet, somebody would have found it and we would be applying it. Equally, we have to be slightly conscious of the Hawthorne effect, whose name comes from a factory in the United States in the 1920s and early 1930s. The idea is that the mere intervention of change can deliver short-term value. There is excellent work in the OECD report that leads us to where we are.
I again say to the minister that it would be good to use the Trachtenberg system. Speaking from the lofty heights of my many years, I think that it would be worth using the experience of older people and getting them into schools to impart their knowledge and experience to our students. We have to be adaptable.
The OECD report is a good interim report. There is more to do, but I am confident that the Government is willing and able to do it and is actually doing it.
16:09
I declare an interest as a member of the EIS. I was a teacher for 20 years, and I probably still am at heart. I always welcome the opportunity to be involved in a debate on education and I recognise its role in creating a stronger, fairer economy and in tackling inequality, releasing potential and offering an important means out of poverty.
I am sad to say that debates on education too often become a theoretical argument—an exchange of figures that can prove almost anything—and there has been an element of that today. We are at our best when our debates on education are rooted in the real world and the real-life experience of people across Scotland, and I urge the Scottish Government to reflect on Jim Scott’s report rather than try to find a way of explaining it away, because it has highlighted important issues.
As a young teacher, I taught non-certificate classes before standard grade came in. If a young person was in a non-certificate class, it basically meant that there was no course, there were no resources and there was no recognition of the effort that they made. With standard grades there came a recognition that every child is entitled to have a course and resources put behind them so that they can show what they have achieved. I would be concerned if we were moving away from that, and I urge the Scottish Government to look at that again.
There is an argument to be had about the benefits and merits of testing, but my concern is that the proposal will simply describe the situation without action then being taken to address what that situation tells us. We know that poverty and disadvantage are key issues in relation to attainment. If all that we are doing through testing is reflecting that, we are—to be frank—wasting our time.
The Scottish Government has announced its attainment grant fund, but I contend that any drive to close the attainment gap must be mainstreamed into our education policy. It is not an add-on or an extra; it should inform all our policy and budget choices. Again, I urge the Scottish Government to have the confidence to look at the choices that it has made in that context and, against the test of closing the attainment gap, to examine whether the things that it is spending money on in education will make the situation better or worse.
I will give an example. I would argue strongly that, if addressing the attainment gap had been at the heart of education policy, the further education sector would not have suffered the ruthless cuts and attacks that it has experienced from the Scottish Government. Early intervention is even more effective when parents are supported, and what is better than a parent taking a second chance at education or securing skills to get into work? The college sector has offered such opportunities in the past, but they are less likely to be there now.
Education in Scotland is relatively good at supporting and developing young people who are settled with supportive families and families who can step in and fill the gaps that cuts in school funds have left, but I also congratulate all those in schools who support young people who have greater challenges—perhaps because of barriers created by additional needs—not least the parents and young people in school communities where families face problems in their lives. We know that schools cannot just be buildings, teachers and jotters; they need to understand the needs of and pressures on young people and how current spending decisions have an impact on them.
We should be clear about the fact that there are pressures on young people from all kinds of families, not just those living in poverty. Bereavement, bullying, neglect and abuse are no respecters of person or class. They can happen to any child, and it is essential that schools are alive to the danger that young people who face those pressures will simply fall out of the system. We know, however, that poverty and disadvantage are key determinants in attainment and require a rigorous approach, not short-term initiatives that are not sustained.
If it is serious about its commitment on attainment, the Scottish Government must review its approach to the funding of local government—not just its approach to cuts in general but the lack of rigour in ensuring that education spending follows need. If a young person is vulnerable to falling out of the school system and is attending less, achieving less and becoming less engaged, action needs to be speedy and proactive, or it becomes too late and we live with the consequences of that for a generation. That is why I urge the cabinet secretary to enable schools to fund properly the attendance officers, support staff, learning support, behaviour support, classroom assistants, personal assistants, educational psychologists, home link staff and admin staff who allow a school to reach out to children who are vulnerable and not supported.
Those resources are not a bonus or an added extra; they are critical to supporting young people to come to school so that they can benefit from the learning that is on offer. In spotting problems, addressing challenges for families and addressing additional needs, there is an opportunity to give those young people the chance to learn. If those elements are stripped out, the consequences will be massive, but all the evidence suggests that that is exactly what is happening.
Through the years, Scottish education prided itself on developing inquiring minds that were open to new ideas and willing to scrutinise and test ideas and established views. That is the challenge for the Scottish Government now. It should not close down the debate on education or simply defend the choices that have been made. If it opens the debate up, we will be with it. We need to resource communities and local government properly so that we can genuinely address the attainment gap and secure the potential for our young people that education offers.
I regret that I now have to reduce the speaking time of the remaining open debate speakers to five minutes.
16:16
Listening to Stewart Stevenson’s speech, two things struck me. The first was the issue of children’s questions. I have two daughters and some of the questions that they have asked in the past few months have been particularly challenging, not so much in scientific areas but in other areas. I am sure that the cabinet secretary can relate to that.
The second thing that struck me concerned a trip that I made to Sweden a number of years ago to visit some friends. While I was there, I was asked to speak to two classes in a high school—it was informal learning in a formal setting. I was asked to go in because the kids, who were learning English, were used to only English or American accents, and the school wanted them to hear English spoken by someone with a different accent. It was a fascinating experience and I genuinely thought that it was a great thing to do.
I was encouraged by the recent OECD review of Scottish education. As others have mentioned, the report paints a largely positive picture of Scottish education and the on-going implementation of the curriculum for excellence.
We share the OECD’s view that we have a great opportunity to lead the world in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework. We firmly believe that the framework will play an important role in driving work to close the attainment gap and continually improve Scottish education. I am sure that everyone in the chamber wants to be able to say, with confidence and with evidence, that there is no better place in the world to be educated than here in Scotland. We want to know that that claim holds true for all young people, regardless of their background or circumstance. Scotland must seize the opportunity to be a world leader in assessing and driving forward educational progress for all children
It is no secret that the past eight years have been tough. The recession and the deep public spending cuts that followed have created pressures for the Scottish Government, for local government and for many families. However, the fact remains that education in Scotland has made progress.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I only have five minutes.
In every part of the country, Scotland has good schools and good teachers, and our young people are good learners. Standards have risen and continue to rise.
We are committed to protecting teacher numbers. All 32 local authorities have committed to protecting teacher numbers and will share in £51 million in investment from the Scottish Government to support that. As we have already heard, on 3 January, the Scottish Government announced an additional £2 million of investment to train an additional 260 teachers next year—60 in primary education and 200 in secondary education.
A child who is born today in one of our most deprived communities should, by the time that he or she leaves school, have the same chance of going to university as a child who is born in one of our most affluent communities. We want to close the attainment gap completely. That will not happen overnight, but it is more than an economic and social challenge for all of us; it is a moral challenge.
Last week, the First Minister launched the national improvement framework for education, which will help to eliminate the attainment gap between the least and most deprived children. The framework has been developed in consultation with teachers, parents and local authorities. Considering the range of people who support the framework, it is clear that it will be a positive development for Scotland and our education system. The framework means that new and better information will be gathered throughout primary and early secondary school years to support the progress of individual children and identify where improvement is needed. It will be backed by the attainment Scotland fund of more than £100 million over four years to drive forward improvements in educational outcomes in Scotland.
We will defend the achievements not just of the Government but of students, pupils and teachers across our country. However, we will also be open to where we need to do better. In every walk of life, we can always improve and must always strive to be better. Sustained investment in learning, from early years to further and higher education, will continue to drive up attainment and mobilise all of Scotland’s talents.
16:20
I thank the Government for bringing the debate to the chamber, as it provides Parliament with an opportunity to scrutinise our education system and proposed changes to parts of that system. As the motion acknowledges, it is important that we look not only at what is working well but at what could be improved upon.
There is much in the motion to welcome. It talks about the more holistic approach of the curriculum for excellence, stresses
“trust in teachers’ professional judgement”
and recognises that it is essential that we reduce energy-sapping, frustrating and time-wasting bureaucracy. The motion tells us that the OECD report suggests
“that the National Improvement Framework has the potential to provide a robust evidence base and that it will be a key means of driving work to close the attainment gap”.
Key education partners such as the EIS tell us that good evidence is part of the equation and that assessment is absolutely central to teaching and learning. However, such bodies say that we already have that evidence and that assessment is on-going—and not only in literacy and numeracy. Teachers assess pupils daily and use that knowledge to help our young people to progress. The EIS does not agree that standardised tests are the key to improving education. In fact, 30 out of 32 local authorities use standardised tests, yet the attainment gap persists. Perhaps, in closing, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning can confirm whether the tests that currently take place will be replaced or whether there will simply be more tests.
We all appreciate that there are drivers within school, between school and beyond school—particularly home and family—that can help to close the attainment gap. It is really important that we take the broadest approach to attainment, as well as ensuring that we make progress where formal attainment is poor. I appreciate that the Government knows that good evidence is only one part of the equation. I would hope that, at the end of this debate, Parliament is clear about how the Government intends to avoid unintended consequences such as national league tables. The EIS, in its response to the consultation on the national improvement framework, asks that protections are put in place to ensure that that does not happen. I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary would address that.
I would also like to understand what the Government will do with that evidence that it has been unable to do so far or is unable to do at the moment. I would ask the Government to focus instead on areas such as teacher recruitment and class sizes—which are clearly linked—and teacher workloads. There should also be a greater focus on the quality of early years childcare. Like parents and the Scottish children’s services coalition, I am very concerned about the fall in the number of additional support needs teachers. Other members have also raised that issue. I recognise that the Government is working to fill vacancies, not just in ASN, but has it considered making support for learning a promoted post? The cabinet secretary is aware of a marked increase in children with additional support needs since 2010 to 153,190 pupils. Currently, 22.5 per cent of children in Scotland’s schools have additional support needs.
Local authorities are facing budget cuts on a staggering scale but the cost of not ensuring that adequate provision for young people with additional support needs is in place will outweigh any savings. Exclusions will increase and positive destinations will be harder to secure for those young people. Those positive destinations include our further education colleges. I recently spent a very cold Friday afternoon outside the offices of the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council with members of the EIS further education lecturers association. The cold was matched only by their passion—passion for the invaluable work that they do and passion for an equitable and secure future and equal pay for those working in the sector.
Our colleges have as much to offer as our universities and we should treat them, and those who study and work in them, equitably. We must ensure that more financial assistance, beyond fees, is available for students who require it. Many potential students cannot afford to feed, clothe and house themselves without a wage, so grant funding is essential. We do not want young people to opt out of further or higher education through necessity rather than choice.
I, too, thank all those working with young people, on whom today’s debate has concentrated, but education should be encouraged and enabled from the cradle to the grave, because parents, grandparents and carers are children’s first educators and they clearly have a central role in any education system. We have to be absolutely clear that austerity should not impact on those who study in local community centres across the land, which enables them better to bring up and educate their own children.
Our young people’s future choices are impacted by their time at school, but that is not the whole story. Will every child in nursery education in Scotland have access to a nursery teacher? As we have heard throughout the debate, inequalities in literacy often begin in early childhood. Increasing nursery teacher numbers would help address the issue of equal access to early years education.
16:26
The independent review, “Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective”, which the OECD published last month, clearly shows me that the Scottish Government is on the right lines with the progress that it has made to date in our education system. Further, the review confirms that the steps proposed for going forward are without doubt the correct ones, although there can be no resting on our laurels.
The aim for Scotland’s education system is clear: we aim to have an exceptional and fair system where every young person in this country has the tools that they need to achieve their potential, regardless of their background. I hope that everyone would agree that that is a worthy goal.
In that regard, the OECD review highlighted many positive developments in Scottish education, including levels of academic achievement being above international averages and distributed evenly; the high inclusion rate of Scottish schools; a clear upward trend in attainment and positive destinations; positive attitudes in schools and among pupils; and noticeable drops in alcohol consumption and smoking among children and young people.
The report also highlighted that more than nine out of 10 school leavers entered a positive destination in 2014, with nearly two thirds continuing on in education. Those are figures that we can be proud of, especially when we put them in the context of the years before this Government came into power.
The statistics show that 40 per cent of pupils from the 20 per cent most deprived areas are getting at least one higher, which is a substantial increase from 23 per cent in 2007. Meanwhile, 91.7 per cent of young people are in work, education or training after leaving school, which compares favourably to 2006-07, when only 87 per cent of school leavers were in positive destinations. It is encouraging that we have also seen a 50 per cent increase in university applications from 18-year-olds from the most deprived areas since 2006.
Of course, we must ensure that equity and excellence in our education system go hand in hand. The OECD review highlights some of the improvements in that context, including the fact that academic achievement is above international averages in science and reading and near average in maths, while the most recent studies show that we have halted the decline in maths and reading that was seen in Scotland’s relative position prior to 2006.
Performance in literacy, maths and numeracy can be improved further and we are taking ambitious steps to continue the work that has been done to date. Those include investing £1.5 million per year in the read, write, count campaign to ensure that every primary 1 to primary 3 child has access to a library of books and educational materials to improve early literacy and numeracy; the introduction of a draft national improvement framework, which will focus on improving outcomes for children by providing better evidence on progress in literacy and numeracy; focusing Education Scotland inspections on raising attainment in literacy and numeracy, whereby each school will be expected to demonstrate a very clear strategy for raising attainment in literacy; investing £1 million over three years from 2014 to 2017 in national and local numeracy hubs to raise standards and share best practice in the teaching and learning of maths and numeracy at all levels; and launching the making maths count programme to drive up maths and numeracy attainment in primary and secondary school by championing the importance of maths.
We need to ensure that we have the right number of highly trained teachers to preserve our educational standards and teacher pupil ratios. Last year, we worked with local authorities to maintain teacher numbers, and we will do that again this year, with a further £51 million in funding. Those steps ensured that the pupil teacher ratio stayed constant at 13.7 over 2014 and 2015, despite an increase in the number of pupils in that time.
As recently as 3 January, the Scottish Government reiterated its commitment to teacher numbers with the announcement that more than £2 million of funding is being made available to train an extra 260 teachers next year. The increase of 60 primary and 200 secondary student teacher places will bring the total intake to 3,490—a rise for the fifth year in a row.
The OECD review endorsed the Government’s introduction of a national improvement framework that features standardised assessment at its heart. At present there is a significant lack of information about overall performance at both national and local levels. A national framework will ensure that we can gather the right evidence about children’s progress to show that everything that local authorities, schools, teachers, parents, and children and young people themselves are doing to raise standards is working.
You need to bring your remarks to a close.
There can be no doubt that Scotland’s education system will always face challenges, but it is clear that the steps that we have taken and will continue to take—including the national framework, the £100 million attainment fund, and the recent announcement of the £1.5 million innovation fund that will identify and fund projects to improve literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing for children who have been adversely impacted by deprivation—can truly give Scotland the potential to become a world leader in education.
16:31
It has been a useful debate, with considered speeches across the chamber. I am particularly grateful to Johann Lamont for her contribution. I did not necessarily agree with all of it, but she usefully reminded us of why this debate matters, which is the ability of education to unlock the potential of not only individuals but communities and Scotland as a country. The shared objective of creating a world-class education system was evident in all the speeches that were made.
The OECD report probably wins the prize for most namechecks. Colin Beattie, Willie Coffey and Gordon MacDonald legitimately pointed to elements of the report that highlight things that are performing well in the Scottish education system and, indeed, trends that are moving in the right direction. However, there was a tendency to adopt a bit of a year zero approach to those positive trends.
Mary Scanlon, Iain Gray and other members were right to highlight areas where there is cause for concern, whether that is in terms of progress that some of our competitor countries are making compared to ours, or in specific areas such as literacy and numeracy.
In my speech, I made a number of criticisms of the Scottish Government. They were intended to be constructive in the context of the approach that we as a party have taken to a range of areas, not just education. They stem from a recognition of the crucial importance of the early years in shaping and determining later attainment.
Cara Hilton made salient points about the speech and language difficulties that those from deprived backgrounds present when they arrive in formal education. Those difficulties are why we prioritise investment in early learning and childcare, particularly for those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. We refused to accept ministers’ assertions that it required the powers of independence to achieve that investment, and we pressed for more ambitious targets.
We welcomed the agreement to move from providing early learning and childcare to less than 2 per cent of two-year-olds from such backgrounds to providing it to 27 per cent of those children. However, we are disappointed that the figure is currently only just above 7 per cent. I would be interested to know how the gap is to be bridged to the 27 per cent, let alone the 42 per cent that we see south of the border.
We have sought to engage in the national improvement framework debate. The way in which the consultation has been taken forward has not necessarily helped, but, as I said, much in the framework makes absolute sense. On the focus on leadership, evidence shows that improvements can be made in the areas of teacher professionalism and parental involvement, and that such improvements can deliver real results.
The focus on literacy and numeracy is absolutely right. George Adam referred to the read, write, count campaign, and Cara Hilton was right to draw attention to Save the Children’s efforts under the “Read on. Get on.” initiative, which I very much support.
As the Scottish Association for Mental Health made clear in its briefing, the extent to which happy and healthy children are those who are likely to fulfil their potential is somewhat underplayed. We may need to revisit that issue in the context of the framework.
The obsession with national testing, which was previously the preserve of Conservative education spokespeople and which Mary Scanlon gave a glowing endorsement of, is wrong-headed. It is the implied reference to that in the Scottish Government’s motion that prevents us supporting it at decision time. Assessment is key to good teaching but, as the Education and Culture Committee heard in evidence, that already takes place but a wealth of information is not being used—a point well made by Alison Johnstone.
As Children in Scotland pointed out,
“the educational inequalities that stem from socio-economic disadvantage are complex and multifaceted”.
Highlighting “real concerns” within the sector over aspects of the framework, it accuses ministers of
“reducing what is a complex set of issues to an easily identifiable slogan with the hope that these issues will be amenable to equally short-term solutions”.
I will turn briefly to the issue of funding and to the attainment fund in particular. As I have said, that fund is fine in principle but flawed in practice. The pupil premium, which we support, is targeted at an individual’s need. It seems to bear some relation to the fair start initiative to which Iain Gray referred. His description of salami slicing and reannouncing of the fund was apposite. In addition, set in the context of a £500 million cut to council budgets, it is hard not to see how the Government’s approach works entirely against the grain of what it says about education and, indeed, children’s services.
Stuart McMillan referred to the teacher numbers guarantee but, as councils have pointed out, in order to honour that agreement we are seeing classroom and learning assistants and other school staff being laid off, as well as cuts to additional support needs teachers. It is hard to see how that will not impact most significantly on the education or service on which those from the most deprived households rely most heavily.
The OECD report gives the basis for optimism. Much of what we are doing is good; some of it is world leading. Equally, there is enough in the report to stave off any sense of complacency.
All share the ambition to create a world-class education system and the objective of enabling every child to fulfil their potential, whatever their background and wherever they live. However, I again question whether the Government’s apparent obsession with a return to national testing in primary schools, its underachievement on early learning and nursery provision, and the cuts to council funding are a recipe for achieving those aims.
16:37
This interesting debate has obviously centred on the key question of what makes an education system world class.
In previous generations, when that was the generally accepted description of Scotland’s school system, the best of the Scottish enlightenment was enshrined as a fundamental principle of the system. All people, whoever they were and whatever their background, had a democratic right to access the intellectual capital of the nation. Learning was seen to be egalitarian, rigorous in its approach and respected by every class in society. There was a healthy balance between what and how things were taught and learned, and a strict self-discipline was expected to accompany the education experience. As such, great pride was taken in schools and what they stood for, irrespective of their community environment.
We now know that the eagerly awaited OECD report commends much about Scottish education along those lines. Indeed, most of that related to the traditional features. It compliments schools on their egalitarian approach and the fact that pupils are valued for who they are rather than where they have come from; it praises teachers’ commitment and professionalism and pupils’ general contentedness and enthusiasm; and it reflects positively on the curriculum for excellence’s basic principles. However, I was surprised that it chooses not to say much about the accompanying assessment, and I will come back to that issue in just a minute.
The report also issues stark warnings, which I will deal with now. I begin with the curriculum for excellence because that is clearly the centrepiece of what schools do. While praising its concept, the OECD says something rather worrying about its delivery. Indeed, it tells the Scottish Government to come up with a new narrative for it as some of the benefits have failed to materialise as a result of the lack of clarity and too much complexity in the accompanying guidance.
The poor authors of the OECD report clearly felt obliged to go through the teacher and parent guidance with a fine-tooth comb. They found four capacities, 12 attributes, 24 capabilities, five levels, seven principles, six entitlements and no fewer than 1,820 “experiences and outcomes”. They question what exactly all that means, and they are right to do so, because, as teachers themselves tell us, sometimes nobody in Education Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority or any other Scottish Government quango can explain what it all means in plain English. That is a serious charge from the OECD, which must be urgently addressed.
Part of the reason for the growing concern about the boundaries of discrete school subjects, which was mentioned by two Labour members, is the fear that we might end up with a slightly narrower curriculum, which will undermine subject choice. The curriculum for excellence was designed to deepen learning but not to the extent that subject choice is compromised or that failures of the English system are mirrored in Scotland.
I suspect that the OECD chose not to comment too much on the accompanying qualifications in curriculum for excellence because they are too new to assess, but I find it strange that little mention was made of the qualifications structure, which is a key part of measuring the success of any education system.
National assessments matter, not in the context of the number of people who are assessed, which is something that the Scottish Government is always keen to present as a key measure, but in relation to results, because results depend on effective subject choice—something that is a matter of concern in some schools.
There must be no weakening of the distinction between subjects on the curriculum, which would dilute the process of identifying what the pupil learns. In that regard, we have moved a little too far in the direction of focusing on how pupils learn. That move threatens to undermine some of the best traditions in Scottish schooling.
The First Minister is right to put more emphasis on the learning and testing of the three Rs, especially at the end of primary 7. I say to members who have grave doubts about tests that it is time for them to come up with evidence that explains the decline in basic standards over the quite long period over which there has been a lack of consistent and standardised testing. It is important that that point is answered.
It is a matter of having not more tests but better quality tests and striking a healthy balance between formative and diagnostic testing. That is the most important point. I make a plea again for the Scottish Government to go back to the data from the trends in international mathematics and science study and the progress in international reading literacy study, which are important when it comes to the quality of assessment.
Some excellent things are happening in Scottish education, but worrying things are happening, too. There is a decline in literacy and numeracy; a third of schools fail to be classed as at least “good” in inspections; there is a deficiency in the hours that are spent in teacher training in literacy and numeracy, as Mary Scanlon said; teacher numbers, including at nursery level, are declining, although we have agreed how important the early years are; applications for headships are declining; and, of course, there is the awful attainment gap.
There is much in Scottish education that is positive, but there are also a lot of stark messages. I hope that the cabinet secretary will address them when she sums up the debate.
16:43
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, which has shown that there is a growing cross-party consensus on tackling the attainment gap. As the saying goes, the first step towards fixing a problem is recognising that there is a problem. I commend the cabinet secretary for speaking honestly about the challenges that we face—after eight years of SNP Government. I am encouraged that all parties in the Parliament are committed to making education inequalities a top priority in this and the next parliamentary session.
As members said, there is an attainment gap between children from poorer backgrounds and those who are growing up in more affluent circumstances. The Scottish Government’s report card, after eight years, does not make comfortable reading. A pupil who entered primary 1 when the SNP began running our education system will now be hitting high school. Such pupils have borne the brunt of education budget cuts, falling teacher numbers and an increasing attainment gap, while watching classmates from wealthier families pull away from them academically.
The OECD report last month set out starkly what was already apparent to many of us: we are no longer world leaders in education. We are falling behind the rest of the world, and change is needed to get our education system back on track.
Much of the media attention and rhetoric so far has been on the reporting requirements and national testing. That is understandable, as it animates the copywriters and gets stories on the news desks across the country. However, some clarity is needed from the Government on the issue of standardised testing. I hope that in her closing remarks the cabinet secretary will offer more details.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has rightly raised the point that the Scottish Government has to consider carefully the information that will be put into the public domain so as to avoid encouraging league tables or putting undue stress on pupils and teachers as a result of heightened media attention. It would appear that the Scottish Government has attempted to alleviate those concerns by not publishing the results of standardised testing directly. The question remains, though, of how ministers propose to prevent league tables from being created if data, although not published by anyone, will still be available through freedom of information requests.
Testing and reporting are a means to an end. That end is to effect substantial improvements in the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils. Scottish Labour believes that there is action beyond what the Government is proposing that can make a difference.
In the coming years, this Parliament will have a substantial suite of new powers that will open up new choices in education. We would use the additional revenues from a new 50p tax rate on the top earners in the country to redistribute money from those who can afford to pay it to those who need it most, by investing additional resources over and above the Government’s proposals in tackling educational disadvantage.
The SNP Government’s budget yet again slashes the funding for local schools, which will make the problem even worse. We would use the Parliament’s new powers to introduce a fair start fund, which would give every primary school an extra £1,000 for every pupil from a deprived family. That money would go directly to headteachers, so that, choosing from a suite of proven methods, they make the decisions about how that money is spent best in their schools to close the attainment gap between the richest and the rest.
We would also offer support to parents to enable them to learn with their children, and we would introduce a special literacy support programme for looked-after children.
We believe that a strong legislative framework is needed to secure faster progress in closing the attainment gap in every part of Scotland. We particularly believe than an ambitious goal is needed to help close the socioeconomic attainment gap in children’s literacy. Specifically, we want to see set out in legislation a clear approach and ambitious timescales for making progress.
As part of the discussions on the Education (Scotland) Bill, we are offering an amendment that would set a target of reducing the attainment gap by half in the next decade. There is precedent for that approach, such as national targets on fuel poverty, climate change reduction and child poverty eradication.
It is our belief that enshrining such a target in legislation will clearly articulate the scale of the Scottish Government’s aims in relation to closing the gap, promote greater public understanding of that key Government priority and raise the profile of the issue. It will demonstrate the changes that need to happen to make the Government’s priority and ambition a success, and make sure that future Governments remain committed to that vital objective.
The achievement of those goals in Scotland will require greater focus on supporting improvement for the poorest children, who are most likely to fall behind, while being consistent with the responsibilities of education authorities to support the attainment of all children. Such an effort will therefore drive a more effective strategic approach to closing the attainment gap at national and local levels.
As I have said, we would use the additional revenue from a new 50p top rate of tax to redistribute resource from those who can afford it to those who need it most, ending the situation that members have highlighted of shared-campus schools where one school gets funding through the attainment fund while the other does not. All schools that have pupils who need the additional support would get it through our funding mechanism.
We would invest those additional resources over and above what the Government proposes to invest to tackle educational disadvantage in order to ensure that the pupils who face the greatest educational challenges have the opportunity to achieve the qualifications that they need to enter a career in science, maths, engineering, technology or whatever field they choose.
Additional resource is only part of the answer, but it is an integral part. Given the weight of support that we have found in the chamber in this debate and in numerous other debates on tackling our educational challenges and the attainment gap, it would be a shame if this opportunity were to pass us by.
16:51
I am pleased that Mr Gray has returned to the chamber. In his opening remarks, he reflected—as he often does, along with the likes of Stewart Stevenson—on the history of education in Scotland. Like other members, he noted that Scotland used to be a world leader in education, whether that was in the 17th century or, as he specifically mentioned, in 1965, with the introduction of comprehensive education. He said that, in my opening remarks, I had claimed that history as my own. However, for the record I point out to Mr Gray that I was not born in 1965, and I have never looked at education in Scotland, either past or present, through rose-tinted glasses.
The point that I was making is that although, over a long period—50 years of comprehensivisation—we have seen more pupils leave school with more qualifications, the evidence from Jim Scott suggests that, for a significant section of young people, that trend may now be in danger. I think that we need to pay attention to that.
I accept that, as is stated in the Audit Scotland report to which Mary Scanlon often refers, we can demonstrate that attainment is increasing in Scotland according to a range of measures that have been used over the past decade.
I know that Dr Scott is a passionate advocate for languages in particular, but I do not always agree with the conclusions that he reaches in his analysis. I do not necessarily agree with how he has applied his research in terms of the changes in our curriculum, or with his taking a snapshot of achievement at S4 when the purpose of curriculum for excellence is far more focused on looking at achievement by young people by the time that they leave school. Nonetheless, I recognise his interest in the area and his remarks about local accountability and governance in local decisions. I hope that, across the chamber, we all accept that it is good news that the number of higher grade entries and passes in languages has gone up over the past year and over the Government’s term of office. That is something to be celebrated.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
Maybe later.
My point about not looking at education in Scotland, either past or present, through rose-tinted glasses is not that we have never had a proud history or that we have never been top of the league; it is that we must accept that inequity in education is not new but has always been with us, both before and after the introduction of comprehensive education.
Many of us need only look at our own families. Despite passing his 11-plus and going to the grammar school in West Lothian—Bathgate academy—my grandfather still had to leave school at 14 to go down a pit. My mother, who left school in the late 60s, post the introduction of comprehensive education, did so with better qualifications than my father had but was always paid far less. We must face up to the inequities in our system, past and present, and not demur from the challenge that that places on us all.
The debate about Scotland’s history in education is important and interesting, but the debate about the future is far, far more important. Today’s debate has been about a seminal report on Scottish education. Various members have highlighted particular aspects of the report. The quote that I want to mention is from Andy Hargreaves, who is a member of the OECD review team. It encapsulates our recent journey and what we need to do next. He said:
“Scotland has taken a bold and brave direction in developing an engaging and challenging approach to learning that is driven by the expert judgments of a strong teaching profession.
If it builds on this impressive foundation, Scotland can, should and will become a world leader of positive educational change.
To do this, Scotland will need to ensure that its curriculum achieves equity as well as excellence for pupils from all backgrounds, wherever they live.
It will need to communicate the effects of its educational efforts through a clearer narrative of progress and track that progress through better indicators of impact.
And its already strong profession will need to collaborate even more closely, among schools, across Local Authorities and with the wider community to achieve its vision.
To be bold is admirable. To stay bold and become bolder still in ways that benefit every learner is essential.”
I think that the cabinet secretary is absolutely right on that comment.
When it comes to the delivery of the curriculum for excellence, the OECD report asked for a new narrative. Will the cabinet secretary say something about how that might be delivered?
Yes, indeed. I concur with Liz Smith on the need for less complexity and more clarity, and I will discuss that very point with the curriculum for excellence management board when I meet it tomorrow.
I want to pick up on some of the other remarks that colleagues made. Members will be aware that a new group on qualifications and assessment has been established. That is about providing more clarity and getting the right balance on the burden of assessment without letting standards slip.
Many members spoke about the importance of the transition between primary 7 and S2, and I agree with them on that. I also point to the importance of the transition from early years education to primary 1 and the post-school transition. Universal provision, whether in the form of attainment advisers, the new innovation fund that the First Minister has announced or the access to education fund, needs to be balanced with a more targeted use of resources through the Scottish attainment challenge, for which we are providing £100 million over four years.
It seems to me that the only person who is obsessed with national testing is Liam McArthur. I stress to him that we are not returning to the high-stakes national testing of the past. I urge him to stop fighting battles that are long gone and to look to the future. He says that there is no shortage of data in the system; it is just that it is not available and not consistent.
On the one hand, the education secretary talks about not returning to high-stakes testing and league tables, but on the other, she keeps talking about the need for consistency across the country and for the information in question to be available on a national basis. How does she square those two statements?
I urge Mr McArthur to read the national improvement framework and to look at the consultation document and the document that highlights how we responded to the very detailed consultation that we undertook.
We must accept that, as the OECD rightly pointed out, although the current national assessment arrangements do not provide significantly robust information, Scotland has the opportunity to lead the world in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework. I say to Mr McArthur and others that nothing trumps teacher judgment and that education is indeed about thinking outside the box and most certainly not about ticking the box.
I am often asked by members what my strategy is. I have never been one of those ministers who like to sit in their office, either upstairs in the Parliament or in St Andrew’s house, with a map of the world at their back and a shelf full of glossy strategies. My strategy is, first and foremost, about weans. The introduction of national standardised assessments is about having the right information at the right time to intervene to help our children progress. They are diagnostic assessments, and teachers will have the flexibility to use those tests at any time in the school year, as and when they see fit.
One of the reasons why the national improvement framework is being put on a statutory basis is to ensure that the Scottish Government and our partners in local government are subject to annual reporting and are both accountable and transparent; that we do not just get into the cycle of describing what the problem is; and that we have the information to intervene at the right time in the right place with action that is firmly rooted in the real world.
As the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, my first and foremost obsession is children and my second is the front line and what we need to do to enable our teaching profession to teach and to support our teaching staff.
You need to wind up, minister.
As recommended by the OECD, this Government will relentlessly and with rigour pursue closing the attainment gap and raising the bar simultaneously, because it is not acceptable on any level for wealth to determine educational achievement and life chances. This Government had the courage to invite the OECD in to review education in Scotland and the courage to open up the education debate. We will now act in the best interests of our children.
Previous
FloodingNext
Business Motion