Education and Lifelong Learning
Education (Aberdeenshire Council)
On 11 December, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I met Aberdeenshire MSPs to discuss the senior phase of the curriculum for excellence and associated parental concerns in Aberdeenshire. The following day, the cabinet secretary met the council’s director of education and education convener to discuss those matters further.
Does the minister believe that parents’ concerns in connection with the number of national 5 qualifications that pupils will be able to sit in Aberdeenshire have been resolved to the satisfaction of both teachers and parents?
I am certainly aware of the concerns, which the member alludes to, that have been raised in Aberdeenshire around the planning for the senior phase of the curriculum for excellence, including in relation to the number of national 5 qualifications. To help to address those concerns and to develop a greater understanding of schools’ approaches and rationale, Aberdeenshire Council set up a senior phase working group, which is, I am glad to say, making progress.
Anxious communications are still coming in from parents in Aberdeenshire. What assurance can the minister give that children in Aberdeenshire will not have their subject choice compromised in any way following the changes with the introduction of the new exams?
I know that Aberdeenshire Council’s education committee has made it very clear that the needs of individual pupils should be considered in considering subject choices. That is one of the most important things. I think that there is an understanding of the need for flexibility and that there is an increased appreciation generally that, although the number of subjects that are taken in fourth year is certainly important, that is certainly not the be-all and end-all in respect of the number of qualifications that pupils will leave school with or, indeed, what universities and employers are looking for. However, I welcome the fact that Aberdeenshire Council has indicated the need for flexibility to allow for the needs of individual pupils.
Motherwell, Coatbridge and Cumbernauld Colleges
My colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning last jointly met the principals of Motherwell College, Coatbridge College and Cumbernauld College on 22 March 2012. How the colleges would work together within the Lanarkshire region was discussed at that meeting.
I will visit Coatbridge College on Friday. Can the minister update members on the current proposal for Motherwell College and Cumbernauld College to amalgamate and on whether Coatbridge College has reconsidered its position on joining in? Does she agree that the joint campus will give students more access to more diverse courses?
As Mr Lyle knows, Motherwell and Cumbernauld colleges propose to merge and hope to vest by 1 November. Earlier discussions had included Coatbridge College, but it concluded that it would prefer to remain as an independent college for the time being.
Educational Attainment (Glasgow City Council)
It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources that are available to it on the basis of local requirements and priorities, including provision to raise educational attainment. In February this year, Mr Russell wrote to Glasgow to congratulate it on the tremendous work that teachers have been doing to improve outcomes for young people in Glasgow.
Glasgow City Council has been successful in tackling the issue and raising educational attainment in the face of poverty and deprivation. Innovative projects such as nurture groups support children in nurseries and schools while involving their families. All the evidence shows that poverty is a barrier to educational attainment. Given the council’s success in tackling that barrier, will the Scottish Government consider providing additional assistance to support Glasgow’s commendable efforts to raise educational standards?
I certainly agree with the member that poverty is a barrier that prevents too many of our young people from taking up opportunities and which affects their life chances. The Government is far from complacent about that.
Although I share the cabinet secretary’s welcome for the improvement in attainment in Glasgow City Council, I believe that it was mostly at the lower end of the attainment scale. Does the minister agree that, for Glasgow’s young people to flourish, the city must improve attainment dramatically at the top end? Will he outline what action he can take to assist Glasgow City Council in achieving that objective? Does he think that the Government’s shift towards preventative spend and early intervention will help to raise attainment across Glasgow and Scotland?
I agree on the importance of preventative spend and that we want to raise attainment at all levels and all points on the spectrum. It is worth saying that Glasgow has achieved significant progress in that respect. In 2006-07, 10 per cent of people left school without qualifications, but the figure has reduced to 4.9 per cent. The issue is about raising attainment at every point on the spectrum and in high achieving schools as well as schools in communities that face real barriers in the form of poverty, which I mentioned earlier.
West College Scotland (Improvements to Campuses)
The funding of individual colleges, including for their estate, is a matter for the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council rather than ministers. However, in December, the Scottish Government announced an additional £5 million to support college estates improvement across Scotland. That is separate from and additional to the increase of £61 million that we made to the overall college sector budget compared with our original spending plans.
West college Scotland already has a first-class campus in Clydebank and excellent facilities—although some have suggested that they are dated—at the James Watt College campus in Greenock and the Reid Kerr College campus in Paisley. Will the minister assure us that the Scottish Government will have discussions with the Scottish funding council so that, if a business case were brought forward either to invest in the fabric or to provide new facilities in Greenock or Paisley, it would be fully and thoroughly examined?
I thank Mr McMillan for his question. It is the right of every MSP to advocate for their constituency or region.
Question 5 from Murdo Fraser has been withdrawn and an explanation has been provided.
College Regionalisation
We are making excellent progress. Outcome agreements have been introduced to make plain what we expect in return for our investment, thereby strengthening accountability. The Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill, which will introduce improvements to college governance, is progressing through Parliament. Two college mergers were completed last year, and four are aiming to vest by 1 August this year, with a further four aiming to do so on 1 November.
The minister will know that both Motherwell College and Cumbernauld College have held public consultations on their proposed mergers. I congratulate both colleges on their efforts to ensure that all interested parties are fully engaged in the consultation.
Yes, I agree with Clare Adamson’s two points about the importance of consultation and the importance of the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill. The purpose of the bill is to underpin our ambitious college reforms, which will indeed deliver benefits for learners and the economy and which, from 2014-15 onward, will deliver efficiencies of £50 million. As we are seeing in Lanarkshire and many other places, college leaders are seizing the opportunities presented by regionalisation, which is leading to an unprecedented programme of change that is for the benefit of learners.
The minister just quoted figures for some of the regionalisation process. When does the Scottish Government estimate that the whole process will be complete and therefore when the full costs will be known?
I know that Ms Smith is not a keen advocate of regionalisation; we on these benches are very much pushing the modernisation of the college sector. Nonetheless, I know that Ms Smith takes a keen interest in this area and follows events closely.
Education Systems
We are always pleased to learn from other countries’ experience in delivering education services. Stewart Stevenson may recall that in May of last year Dr Pasi Sahlberg, the director general for the Centre for International Mobility and Co-operation in Helsinki, spoke to the Scottish Parliament on lessons from Finland on its approach to education. In December of last year, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning met Leighton Andrews, the Welsh education minister, and discussed delivery of education services in Wales. That was followed by a meeting between officials to look at the Welsh approach to delivering education.
I welcome the interaction with Finland, Wales and, I am sure, a number of other countries. Will the minister comment on the improvement partnership programme in particular and how it will improve attainment? Can she provide a guarantee that we will not see the introduction of league tables in Scotland as we have seen elsewhere in the United Kingdom?
The improvement partnership programme is designed to facilitate schools working together either within local authorities or across local authority boundaries. The schools that are involved will learn from each other techniques and approaches that have been successful in raising attainment.
The minister has indicated that partnership will be voluntary. If local authorities show no willingness to participate, how will the Scottish Government deliver the commitment?
The cabinet secretary’s announced intention is to raise attainment through the improving partnership programme, which is designed to facilitate schools working together to raise the attainment that is so desperately needed across the whole of Scotland, and to learn from areas that are doing good work.
Prisoners (Educational Qualifications)
As part of its approach to offender management, the Scottish Prison Service provides a wide range of supports to help offenders to achieve qualifications. That includes class subject teaching, access to information and communications technology equipment, designated study times, one-to-one tuition and peer support where appropriate. For those who are studying at a higher level, additional supports include telephone tutorials and tutor visits provided by Open University Scotland. The extent of such support will vary between individual prisoners depending on their personal learning needs and the type of study involved. Specialist assistance is also available for those who are identified as having a barrier to learning and for those for whom English is a second language.
When I met some ex-offenders a few weeks ago, one of them raised with me the issue that someone who is on an education programme receives £6 per week but someone who carries out manual labour, such as building picnic benches, can receive up to £18 per week. Does the minister agree that that is a disincentive for education in prisons and that it does nothing to rehabilitate offenders and reduce reoffending?
The starting point will always be that we want to motivate any offender to be part of a learning programme. I do not think that money is necessarily the only means of motivation and evidence seems to indicate that offenders who take part in such programmes do so because they genuinely want to learn. I visited educational facilities in Perth prison and was impressed by the degree to which that motivation exists.
Travel to School (Safety)
The Scottish Government believes that the safety of pupils when travelling to school is of paramount importance and must be maintained. Achieving safe transport routes to school is a matter for individual local authorities.
The minister may be aware of proposals by the Labour-led administration in Aberdeen City Council to close Bramble Brae primary school, which serves the regeneration area of Cummings Park, and merge it into the existing Quarryhill school. That would result in the children from the Bramble Brae catchment area having to cross Provost Fraser Drive, a road on which there has been an 18 per cent increase in morning traffic since 2010 and, regrettably, a number of accidents, including pedestrian fatalities. Although the minister cannot comment on individual cases, what advice would he offer to my constituents, who are keen to ensure that safety considerations are appropriately considered during the consultation process?
Although the member is right to say that I cannot comment on an on-going consultation, it is fair to say more generally that the Government has been active on issues relating to school transport. The publication of a guide to improving school transport safety was produced in December 2010. It is primarily for use by Scottish local authorities and includes legal obligations and responsibilities, information on casualty risk and on the school journey, and 10 ways in which local authorities and others can reduce risk and improve safety of pupils.
Question 10, in the name of Paul Martin, has not been lodged, but an explanation has been provided.
Employability Fund
Access to pre-employment skills training is essential both for those nearest the labour market and for those who face barriers to employment. Under the auspices of the employability fund, Skills Development Scotland has contracted a network of providers to deliver that training, ensuring that it reflects local labour market conditions. Skills Development Scotland will monitor and review the delivery of its contracted training against the objectives of the wider employability fund. That will include regular monitoring of trainee starts and achievements and is consistent with its usual approach to monitoring the performance of national training programmes.
Throughout the chamber, members all agree that there should be a relentless focus on youth employment. I emphasise that again today. However, I ask the minister how the employability fund and the Government’s wider skills strategy will help low-skilled unemployed people of all ages, including adults who are trying to re-enter a difficult labour market and people who have recently been made redundant.
Margaret McCulloch makes a fair point. As the Minister for Youth Employment, I agree that, as part of the Government’s wider strategy, there should be an unrelenting focus on young people who, despite the positive movement in the right direction of the youth unemployment statistics today, are still twice as likely to be unemployed as someone over the age of 24. Nonetheless, we have to consider the needs of older people, by which I mean people from 25 to retirement. The employability fund does that because, as well as replacing the large national training programmes targeted at young people, such as get ready for work, it replaces training for work, which is targeted at people aged 18 and up.
Does the minister agree that the latest labour market statistics, which show a 4,000 fall in Scottish unemployment, are evidence that Scotland is taking the right approach to tackling youth unemployment?
I know that the statistics just came out today, but the headline unemployment figures show that unemployment has fallen by 11,000 in Scotland. The figures for young people are indeed encouraging. The youth unemployment rate has fallen by 6.8 per cent. We have the lowest rate of youth unemployment in three years. However, that still means that we have 65,000 young Scots who are seeking to find their way into work, and there is far more to do. I firmly believe that the Government’s policies on colleges and modern apprenticeships, and job creation schemes such as the community jobs Scotland scheme, which has been funded with a £29 million investment, and, from this year, the youth employment Scotland initiative, which is the employer recruitment incentive for small and medium-sized businesses, are important. However, now is not the time to take our foot off the gas, and we must not be blown off course by others elsewhere.
School Maintenance
The statutory environmental requirements for Scottish schools are contained in the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967. Those regulations, which apply to all schools, prescribe standards for a range of environmental factors including heating and ventilation. It is for local authorities to take the necessary action to comply with the regulations. Further guidance for local authorities on internal environmental conditions in schools can be found in the Government’s publication “School Design: Optimising the Internal Environment—Building our Future: Scotland’s School Estate”, which is available on the Scottish Government website.
I have particular constituency concerns, as the standard of the fabric of the buildings of a number of primary schools in Anniesland is below that which parents and staff find acceptable. Indeed, in one school, the central heating system broke down this winter, and was replaced with mobile gas fires, which I think were potentially unsafe in that circumstance.
Again, that is a matter primarily for the local authority, although I know that the member has been diligent on this issue and has previously raised with me the suitability of the buildings of three schools in his constituency—Broomhill, Corpus Christi and Blairdardie—whose conditions are described as poor. My understanding is that Glasgow City Council is in the process of renewing such buildings. However, I do not have a timescale for that process. That is for the member to discuss with the local authority. Ultimately, if the member has concerns about the safety of a building, he might wish to take the matter up with the Health and Safety Executive. However, it is primarily something about which he should speak to the local authority.
College Mergers
The objectives are twofold: to better meet the needs of learners and employers in a region, and to do so more cost efficiently. Decisions to pursue college mergers, while ultimately requiring ministerial approval, are for the governing bodies of the institutions concerned. We have made clear that we will not force any colleges to merge.
The minister will be aware of the proposal to merge Anniesland College, Langside College and Cardonald College, which affects my constituents. Will the minister state specifically how much money the proposal would save and state what account has been taken of the travel difficulties for people who will have to travel a greater distance to a centralised location in order to further their education?
The member mentions issues to do with transport, which are important. Colleges are able to give financial support to students who have difficulty meeting the cost of travel. Of course, we have the best student support package anywhere in the United Kingdom and, for the second year in a row, £95 million is being invested in student support. I already gave figures on regionalisation and mergers in an earlier answer. Those figures came from Audit Scotland and showed that, from 2014-15, there will be annual savings of £50 million across the estate throughout Scotland. That can only be of benefit to learners in Mr Kelly’s area and elsewhere in Scotland. The experience of the Glasgow merger also gives a positive indication of financial savings of £5.8 million. I reiterate the point that the practice of making, and the potential to make, financial savings is of benefit to learners in any area.
Will the minister outline how much more the Scottish National Party Administration has spent in cash terms on colleges than the previous two Labour-Lib Dem Administrations did?
My recollection is that, after the budget, which provided for £61 million in addition to planned budgets to be invested in the sector over two years, the cash-terms figure that Mr Adam seeks is a 45 per cent increase. We are, indeed, investing more resources than our predecessors. The good news for colleges is that there is a funding floor of £522 million. That is more than our predecessors provided in each and every year of their Administrations, as they never got to more than £510 million. Despite the austerity that we are experiencing thanks to the UK Government, we are spending more on the college sector. That applies not only to the teaching and revenue budgets but to the capital budgets, in which we are spending 50 per cent more.
James Kelly asked a specific question about how much would be saved from the merger of the three colleges that he identified. The minister indicated that she knew the global figure. We can get a global figure only when we add individual figures together. Will she now give the specific answer about how much will be saved by that merger?
If Mr Henry wishes such a detailed answer, we will do our best and endeavour to provide it in writing.
Horizon 2020
A number of initiatives are in place to ensure that Scotland is ready for the advent of horizon 2020. A multi-agency steering group was established in 2010 to ensure that the support mechanisms are in place for Scottish organisations that wish to engage in EU research and development programmes and to co-ordinate Scottish responses to developments in existing and future research and development programmes. Key elements of the support available are a series of roadshows through the spring and summer of this year and the introduction of an innovation voucher scheme specifically to support small and medium-sized enterprises to engage with horizon 2020.
I thank the minister for that comprehensive answer. Does he agree that the engagement of Scottish universities in large-scale European projects is a benefit not only to the university sector but to the broader Scottish economy? In particular, the concentration of excellence in our Scottish university base allows Scotland to lead a European Institute of Innovation and Technology knowledge and innovation community bid in the forthcoming call for proposals.
I certainly agree whole-heartedly that we have a truly excellent research base in Scotland. There are obvious synergies between the ambitions of our innovation centres and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s KIC programme. Both seek to support successful collaborations between industry, academia and businesses to address some of the significant societal and technological challenges that we face.
Sectarianism
We are aware of a number of educational programmes to help schools tackle sectarianism. The promotion of diversity and equality is an important element of curriculum for excellence.
Does the minister agree that education is the key to tackling sectarianism among young people? Is he aware of the Mark Scott leadership for life award, which, over the past 15 years, has helped to bring together young people who are often separated by their different backgrounds, by sectarianism, by racism or by territorialism? Will he join me in congratulating the pupils of Cardinal Newman high school and Bellshill academy who successfully took part in the Mark Scott leadership award community project?
I am happy to join the member in congratulating them and in commending all efforts that have been made in our schools to combat sectarianism. I have been struck on a number of recent visits to schools by the enthusiasm that many pupils have shown for projects such as those using the novel “Divided City”, which engages young people in the issues around sectarianism. I am more than happy to agree that those are all efforts to be applauded.
Part-time Students (Fife)
According to the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, the total number of part-time students who have studied at colleges in Fife in the six academic years ending in 2011-12 is 19,280.
Does the minister share my concern that Lochgelly, which is one of the most deprived and poverty-stricken areas in Scotland, now faces the closure of the training centre facility there, and that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has declined to make any intervention and instead advised me to speak to the Scottish funding council, which has not responded after three weeks? How does she intend to address the fact that women in the area—women are the most seriously impacted on by the global economic crisis—will no longer have that training facility?
I certainly give Mrs Eadie an undertaking that I or one of my officials will contact the Scottish funding council and ask it to contact her. It is worth noting that the majority of learners in the college sector are women. There are roughly 170,000 women in the sector, compared with 150,000 male learners. Most courses continue to be part time, which is of advantage to some women. As I say, I will ask the Scottish funding council to contact Mrs Eadie directly.
I welcome the recent audit from the Scottish Government and the Scottish funding council, which shows claims of large numbers of students on college waiting lists to be false. Will the minister outline what work is being done to improve and streamline the college application process further?
Joan McAlpine raises an important and valid point. Our audit highlighted an inconsistency in college application and admission processes, particularly in how well applicants are being informed about those processes at various stages.
Student Awards Agency for Scotland (Prompt Payment)
SAAS supported nearly 160,000 students in 2012-13 by providing tuition and living costs support of about £570 million. We have the best student support package that is available anywhere in the United Kingdom, and the simplification of the system that was announced in August will make processing applications quicker and easier. The system for this year opened on 15 April and students are encouraged to apply as early as possible.
Please be brief, Mr Don.
I am sure that the minister agrees that the improvements and simplification that were announced last year are welcome. If she has time to do so, will she outline how the new system will work?
I do not have time to do Mr Don’s question justice, but I will say for the benefit of the Parliament that the new system will be dramatically simpler for all students. That is partly to do with there being only four levels of award. We are striving for students to have access to more money and to know in advance how much money they will have.