Chamber and committees

I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for their evidence this morning. That concludes the public part of our proceedings. The committee will move into private session to consider the final agenda item.

My recollection of the evidence was that it was about the complementary nature of having teachers, pupil support assistants and speech and language therapists in the classroom, so it was not perhaps as binary as—

We have a number of supplementaries on the same theme. I must ask that they be kept brief.

Given the pressure on my final statement, I will conclude my remarks there. It is important that we address violence in the classroom.

I welcome the chance to speak in the debate, and I thank Pam Duncan-Glancy for securing it. I echo Liam Kerr’s comment that education is the foundation of a successful Scotland, which Alex Rowley also echoed.

At this morning’s meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, the cabinet secretary said that she accepted that it will be a challenge to get it right for Scotland’s teachers and that, in last year’s pay negotiations, there was not enough action on teachers’ working conditions. We know that reduced contact time, pupils’ behaviour and violence in the classroom are all issues that need to be dealt with and which impact on teachers’ working conditions.

Arguably, the most pressing issue is the need to address the deterioration in pupils’ behaviour since the pandemic, which has been raised over and over by teachers and parents. Violent and disruptive behaviour in our classrooms has been getting worse.

Back in June last year, the committee held a round-table discussion with parent groups, teachers, educational psychologists and children’s right organisations. As Alex Rowley mentioned, the cabinet secretary hosted summits in June, August and November of last year, but, to be frank, I do not have a sense that any substantive recommendations, actions or changes have come from those summits.

The Scottish Government’s “Behaviour in Scottish Schools 2023” report found that levels of disruption have increased across all surveyed categories. Low-level disruptive behaviour, disengagement and serious disruptive behaviours have all increased since 2016. That has been accompanied by a decline in most reported positive behaviours. Instances of verbal abuse and physical aggression towards pupils and staff have risen in number.

The proportion of secondary school support staff who have experienced violence between pupils has risen from less than one in five to almost one in two. Most teachers and school staff are witnessing and being subjected to considerable instances of negative behaviour. The Government’s report found that two thirds of staff had encountered general verbal abuse, almost three in five had encountered physical aggression and more than two in five had experienced physical violence between pupils in the classroom in the past week. I know that I would not want to work in such conditions. Why are we subjecting our teachers to that?

The report stated:

“In secondary schools, the behaviour most commonly reported as having the greatest negative impact was pupils using/looking at mobile phones or tablets when they should not. More than half of secondary school staff ... said this was one of the three behaviours that had the greatest negative impact”.

Therefore, it will come as no surprise to members that I again want to discuss that issue. Of course, most pupils are well behaved, but all suffer from the consequences of disruption in their classrooms and are vulnerable to distraction. Experts recognise the addictive nature of constant access to social media. I am sure that many of us could look in the mirror in that respect.

Mobile phones are not the only cause of the growing school discipline problems—the report also cites the rising incidence of drug and alcohol consumption—but, if mobile phones are a significant contributor to those problems, their removal must surely be part of the solution. Banning mobile phones from schools will not solve the deep-rooted problems that exist, but it will help.

Across the country, we also face the problem of “ghost pupils”, which I want to briefly discuss. Hundreds of pupils in Scotland failed to attend a single day of school last year. The number of those under 16 who recorded zero attendance rose to a record high of more than 600, which included more than 300 primary 1 to 7 children. While the reasons for those absences vary, one senior teaching union official said that they included rising violence in classrooms and cuts to education budgets.

Those startling numbers come in the wake of last month’s analysis by the programme for international student assessment, which reported a long-term—

Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in 2024 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. Agenda item 1 is an evidence session on post-school education and skills reform with Graeme Dey, who is the Minister for Higher and Further Education; and Minister for Veterans. It is a pleasure to have you back, minister. Alongside Mr Dey, from the Scottish Government, are Lesley Ward, who is the head of public bodies governance and reform, and Jane Duffy, who is the post-school qualifications unit head. [Interruption.] That is the lighting going down.

I welcome you all and thank you for your time. I invite the minister to make some brief opening remarks before we move to questions.

Thank you very much for that, minister. I will kick off by picking up on what you said about decluttering the landscape and having the right change with the right sequencing. That all sounds familiar given all the reviews that have been taking place. We really want a clear road ahead for reform. How will all the recommendations of all the recent reviews be factored in? What are you looking at? What are your thoughts on addressing smaller and more peripheral reviews such as the 2020 “Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review” and the report “The Entrepreneurial Campus”?

Back in November, James Withers told us that cherry picking from reviews would worry him, so it would be good to know that we are not missing key elements.

We will be very interested in that progress, so I thank you for that commitment.

You are reviewing some of the unintended consequences.