Chamber and committees

Those who are working with me here today are probably not surprised that some of my grandchildren are neurodiverse, because I made a big thing about sitting on this side of the room as opposed to that side the room—sometimes, even such simple wee things are the issue.

You talked about there being gaps in the specialist workforce. What is the most proactive way to deal with that and to encourage those in the profession to go down that route? There is obviously a need for that, and we need to find a way to do it, so what are the Government’s plans for that?

What are your thoughts on delivery? Obviously, in this session of Parliament, just about everything will be based on public sector reform. You are right to say that the Government is providing funding for addressing additional support needs, but the support is delivered by local authorities. Is there not a case for saying that that is also a major part of public sector reform? I say that because there is a need and we need to take a strategic view on how we deal with it, so the idea of 32 local authorities having 32 different ideas makes that a bit more complex and difficult.

My final question is about skills and, in particular, apprenticeships. In the previous parliamentary session, we passed the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill at the last minute, and the Scottish Funding Council now deals with apprenticeships and all that. During our evidence sessions on that bill, witnesses from trade bodies that offer apprenticeships came to speak to us, and I asked about the profit that they take from the public money that they receive. They said that they take 40 per cent, which means that only 60 per cent actually goes on the apprenticeship and the 40 per cent is their top slice. When we compare that with colleges, we see that about 95 per cent goes to the student and 5 per cent is spent on admin.

Is there a better or more flexible way of delivering apprenticeships? In many cases, those trade bodies end up using the colleges anyway as part of the apprenticeship. Is there a different, more traditional way of looking at that? The fact that those companies are top-slicing 40 per cent into their sky rocket and walking away with the money causes me concern.

I have a final question about ASN and then will probably ask some questions about skills.

What metrics and data are you using to show that we are making progress on ASN? How do you do that? Is there a way for the committee to see that? It is a major issue that people are talking about and that families are dealing with.

That is important because, although we have committed to ensuring that all young people get the opportunity to go to university and elsewhere, there is still a need for people to go down the apprenticeship route, and we need more flexibility in the system to allow young people to see it as an option. What are some ways of encouraging young people to do that? Sometimes parents will be an issue as well. They might say, “Get yourselves to university, but don’t try and become a plumber or an electrician,” when many plumbers and electricians are earning salaries in excess of any of the professions.

I have questions on the back of what you said in your opening statement about taking forward the biggest overhaul and reform in education since the curriculum for excellence. Having been here for a long time, I have the scars from when we went through curriculum for excellence initially in a previous committee. There will be those in the sector, including teachers, unions and others who, it could be argued, are reluctant to change and find it a bit difficult to deal with—that is human nature, after all.

Could you give a wee bit more detail on where you are going with that? How will you measure the outcomes? What will you regard as success when we are going through that? What is the actual plan?

You talked about clarifying the role of knowledge. This might be me being a bit thick, but what exactly does that mean?

I want to ask about additional support needs. To give you some context, I have five grandchildren. I know that it will be a shock to you that someone who looks so young can have five grandchildren, but my daughter Jessica saw “The Waltons” and decided that they were a possible role model for her life.

Three of Jessica’s young girls are neurodivergent. It took a while for the oldest to be diagnosed, but once one of them triggered it, the system has been quite supportive to the others as they have gone through nursery and schooling. The new national staged intervention model is extremely welcome, but how do we improve families’ experience of going through the initial process? I know that the system then kicks in and that support is provided for additional support needs for young people, but the issue is the initial diagnosis and getting that support to children and their families. How do you see that progressing over the next couple of years?

For me, a priority is to look at child poverty and the attainment gap and to take that a step further into further and higher education. Where are we with places in higher education?

One of the issues that came out in the previous parliamentary session was how we train apprentices. There were issues with some of the trade bodies that are involved in that, which I found a bit strange when I talked to them. We should explore some of that, because there could be a space for colleges to do what they have done in the past and start going down the training route. That helps with the jobs market; it is not just about getting a degree and going elsewhere.

There is also the issue of additional support needs. Three of my grandchildren are at various stages on the spectrum. It is an ongoing issue, and there are challenges for teachers in particular. In the previous session, we heard teachers say how challenging the situation is for them in the classroom. We will have to address that issue.

On the whole, I do not doubt for a minute that the education landscape will keep us busy over the next five years. There will always be something going on, but those are the key priorities for me. Dealing with child poverty is the important thing for me, including how we make sure that everyone gets the opportunity to work their way out of it, no matter where they live.

Duncan Dunlop brings up a valid point, and our predecessor committee did some work on the issue a few times. We often talk about hard-to-reach children and families—although, actually, we do not use that language now. Nine times out of 10, they are the ones who do not engage with school and will not do well. However, some youth work projects are classic examples of ways in which they can get access to learning. For example, many football clubs run various training and teaching activities. They use football as a hook, but the young people end up engaging in the educational side, too. I think that the Spartans Football Club in Edinburgh is doing great work—the previous committee did some work on what it is doing, and we should explore that further, because I think that it has been more successful than we expect, and could point to a new and better way of working with some young people. The issue relates to the poverty-related attainment gap, because those young people are just not going to school, but they can end up getting involved in other things, such as the interesting work that is being done by the Spartans.