Chamber and committees

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate you on your new role.

I am incredibly pleased to be speaking in this education debate. As a newly elected MSP for the Lothian region, I share and reaffirm my commitment to the area in which I grew up, attended school and went to university. I have lived and worked here for most of my life. I care deeply for the area and am very proud to call it my home.

I stood for election to be a strong voice for the local communities. People who know me know that I will keep that promise, so when I receive from constituents correspondence in which they raise serious concerns about the harrowing experiences that their families are going through, and legitimate concerns about their children’s futures, I have to ensure that their voices are heard. Just as all our futures hung in the balance during the election campaign, so too do the futures of school children across Scotland, because of the alternative certification model. It seems to be shaping up to be yet another exams fiasco for the SNP Government.

One of my constituents contacted me to share his first-hand experience of the debacle of the process and, to be frank, it is alarming. Initially, students were told that they would not sit exams this year. The SQA then released exam-style papers and schools sent out exam timetables with only four weeks’ warning. Parents had no guidance on how to prepare their children for that, either academically or emotionally, in such a short timeframe.

Teachers were also under immense pressure to organise the exams as quickly as possible, which led to knock-on effects for other pupils and impacted particularly on pupils’ mental health. Being faced with exams under such conditions is unreasonable, especially with the added confusion of being told that the exams were not exams after all.

My constituent, who is a parent, told me that never in his children’s school life had he been so stressed. He told me that

“it was absolutely beyond any sense and completely unthinking to subject young people to that amount of strain ... which is still occurring. ... As parents, we felt utterly disorientated, not knowing how to support our children or understand the importance ... these tests had ... Information was patchy, conflicting, and very hard to come by. It has been and continues to be a very anxiety provoking experience for the whole family ... Things have felt very disempowering to us because we cannot understand how to support our children and the consequences ... these assessments will have.”

There have also been worrying stories of the content of the exams being

“freely available to ... students due to exams being repeated on different days. This was by cheat sheets ... WhatsApp groups and other electronic platforms.”

That put some children at a huge disadvantage if they were in the first cohort to sit the exams. My constituent feels

“at a loss to understand how schools and teachers will be able to mark papers fairly, and I feel the whole thing is a sham.”

Those are his words. He carries on:

“I feel exceptionally angry that grades and futures could be decided on this.”

He also told me that he had written to the SQA to raise his concerns, but

“the reply I was given was firmly projected back to the schools and when I asked the schools I sensed they felt gagged to say what they really felt.”

I have also heard from a teacher in my region that it is the less well-off students who are suffering most. Many of them are not turning up for the so-called exams out of fear of how they will perform, after the shambolic past year of learning has put them at such a disadvantage.

It was only recently that the SQA stressed that the national qualifications 2021 group had published information on a new service that is aimed at young people who have suffered severe disruption of their learning. I have a genuine concern that that will be too little, and way too late, given what I have heard and continue to hear from professionals. I have therefore written this week to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to seek answers to all those questions. I look forward eagerly to her response.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, which represents 6,500 high school teachers, has said that

“‘it’s not too late’ for Shirley-Anne Somerville to take action to stop ‘the exams debacle’”.

Unlike the EIS, the SSTA was refused a place on the Scottish Government’s national qualifications 2021 group. It said that 92 per cent of its members had found that collection of evidence through assessments has created “substantial ... stress” and unnecessary pressure on the pupils.

That is what I am hearing from my constituents. Pupils should not be put under so much pressure that they are unable to sleep, experience feelings of hopelessness and worry that their future is at an end before it has even begun. We should be ashamed.

The alternative certification model is not the only problem: we must not forget that the attainment gap remains wide open and that there are 1,700 fewer teachers in schools than there were when the SNP came to power. Results from the programme for international student assessment show that Scottish education has gone backwards and that subject choice is narrowing. The SNP has also failed to cut class sizes.

Time and again, the First Minister has stated that her number 1 priority is education, and that that is what she wants to be judged on. Although I am in no doubt that managing the education of the country during the pandemic has been an extremely difficult task, the pandemic must not be used as an excuse for the state of our education in Scotland. The health, wellbeing and education of our young people should have been priorities throughout the pandemic, but it is clear that young people have been failed by the Scottish Government—not only now, but in each of the 14 years for which the SNP has been in power.

I will change the tone now, to make a very personal comment. I am dedicating my speech to my most fabulous friend Kathleen. I need a deep breath for this bit. We met at university through a shared love of hockey, both on and off the pitch, although latterly it was more fun off the pitch because of injuries and the like. My very dear friend passed away in February. She was a force to be reckoned with and an immense legal talent who has been taken from us far too soon. This is for you, Kathleen. Like you, many people have put their faith in me to stand up and be a strong voice for the people of the Lothian region. I will not let you down. Thank you.

I thank the minister for that offer—I will take him up on it.

This is not an isolated incident, given the Government’s failure to protect some of Scotland’s most vulnerable people. Last year, a report—which was initially delayed—stated that more than 100 Covid-positive patients were released into care homes during the pandemic, yet it was only earlier this year that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport finally admitted that there was a failure to take the right precautions. The Scottish Conservatives have repeatedly called for an immediate public inquiry into what happened in our care homes, but the Government has repeatedly refused to set up such an inquiry, despite cross-party support for it in the Parliament. Will the Government finally listen to Parliament and conduct an immediate public inquiry, so that the families of care home residents can finally get the answers that they deserve?

The report makes for distressing reading. The Mental Welfare Commission found that, at the start of the pandemic, hundreds of people with conditions such as severe dementia and learning disabilities were moved from hospitals to care homes without due consent, amid what the commission calls “endemic ... poor practice”, “confusion” over the legal rights of adults with incapacity and disregard for those with power of attorney. Most worryingly, the report found that at least 20 of the transfers were unlawful. What assurance can the minister give us that the issue is being investigated and that such transfers will not happen again?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will comment on the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland’s report “Authority to discharge”, which shows unlawful transfers of adults with incapacity from hospitals to care homes during the early stages of the pandemic.

took the oath.