Chamber and committees

There has clearly been concern about the timing of the report’s publication and the fact that it was the day after Fiona Robertson was here. I would like to make clear that the timing of publication was not the SQA’s decision. It had been hoped to publish the report earlier, which would have been before Ms Robertson’s committee appearance, and it was not the SQA’s decision to have the date that was finally settled on. That was for the commission to decide.

I agree that it is disappointing that the publication did not happen earlier, so that Ms Robertson could have discussed the issues with the committee. To be absolutely clear, that decision was not of the SQA’s making.

I heard that the First Minister answered an entirely different question from the one that you asked. I think that she misheard the question and answered a question about small businesses, so I came prepared for you to try again today.

The distribution for the £10 million has been agreed through Convention of Scottish Local Authorities leaders. Each local authority will receive an equitable share of the funding, on the strict understanding that it is for the purpose of improving ventilation. That includes covering the cost of monitors. The funding will be processed through the local government settlement. The capital element will be provided to local authorities as a one-off payment in November and the revenue element will be provided in March, as is the normal practice.

Local authorities have taken great strides to undertake their initial monitoring before the October holidays, which I stress are not all at the same time in Scotland. They are making good progress to allow that to happen. Some local authorities are reporting concerns about supply issues, which we always knew might be a challenge in some areas. We have been working closely with COSLA to give advice on procurement routes for quick supply and brokering discussions between local authorities to arrange the loan of mobile devices, if that is feasible when some councils are, perhaps, further ahead.

Once the October holidays have begun, we will collate the final position. I anticipate that we will provide a report later in October. That will allow an assessment of how the work has progressed. We will keep a close eye on what happens after October once the initial monitoring has taken place.

I was made aware of that a few weeks ago, prior to the public announcement being made.

I will take those two issues separately, as they are separate.

With regard to next year, the SQA has plan A, which is that exams will take place, and that is what we as a Government, the SQA and, importantly, schools and young people are moving forward with in their teaching and learning. There have, of course, been discussions around contingency measures that need to be in place. For example, if the public health advice at that point was that we could not have an exam diet, teacher judgment would be absolutely at the heart of those. However, the reassurance for teachers is that no additional assessments would need to take place. That is different from the alternative certification model.

In short, there will be no dual assessments. Normal assessments can take place and, at the end of the year, if there is no exam diet, teachers will be able to form a judgment based on what has taken place during a normal assessment year.

As for what will happen in future years, that is a very separate issue that will be looked at. I will make further announcements on that later in the autumn, as we have just had the Stobart report on what will happen in future. Exams will, of course, play a part, but the Stobart review has presented us with opportunities and questions about what these things will look like in the future. That is an issue not just for Government, and it will be taken forward very much in collaboration and discussion with others. However, as I have said, I will make further announcements in due course.

It is an on-going process. It is not about a point in time. As I have kept saying, schools are still in the midst of dealing with the pandemic. I will not look only at what happened last year; I will look at what is continuing to happen and the Government will adapt its progress accordingly.

We must ensure that that area is working not just well but up to the standard that people would expect. That is why, as part of the programme for government, we have undertaken to implement an equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy, which will ensure that that is being looked at as thoroughly as the committee would expect. I am sure that lessons can be learned from what has happened in the SQA, and that issues with historical policies and practices can be dealt with expeditiously if they are found.

Good morning, and thank you very much, convener. It is a pleasure to be able to appear in front of the committee to discuss my priorities for education in the new session. I am deeply honoured to be serving as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, and I am delighted to return to the portfolio after having been a junior minister previously.

Although the latest data shows that Covid cases have, thankfully, been coming down, we remain in the midst of a pandemic, of course, and I do not underestimate how challenging that continues to be for everyone. I remain acutely aware of the impact that it is having on the lives of our young people and on the education and skills sector as a whole.

From the outset, we have been working to protect children and young people from the worst impacts of Covid-19 and to support them to recover, where they have been affected. We know that some learners will have suffered adverse consequences to their health and wellbeing or their attainment. We will continue to address those impacts, and I am determined that every child and young person in Scotland will have the opportunity to fulfil their potential as they progress through the education system and on to positive destinations.

Yesterday, the Scottish Government published “Education Recovery: Key Actions and Next Steps”, which was developed with input from our partners, including young people. It outlines our on-going response to the impacts of the pandemic and sets out some of the key next steps that we will take to address them.

The document also draws on advice from our international council of education advisers. Among other things, it has highlighted that the pandemic reaffirms equity as the defining issue of our time. That is why we remain committed to closing the poverty-related attainment gap for children of all ages, which is a core part of our wider national mission to eradicate child poverty.

Although we continue to make good progress on that long-term ambition, I recognise that there is more to do and that the needs of individual learners should be central to our reforms. That is why we will provide £1 billion over this session of Parliament to close the poverty-related attainment gap and support education recovery, including a refresh of the Scottish attainment challenge programme from 2022-23. That will empower schools, support education recovery plans, and help to improve outcomes for children and young people. This autumn, I will set out to Parliament how we will refresh the attainment challenge and how that will support faster and more consistent progress for learners across the country.

It has, arguably, never been more important to ensure that our education system delivers for Scotland’s children. That is why I have committed to a number of important reforms in this session. In June, I confirmed that the Scottish Qualifications Authority will be replaced and that I am minded to create a single specialist agency for curriculum and assessment. Reform of the education system aims to reduce variation in the outcomes achieved by learners and to ensure the best possible quality of support and challenge for our school environment.

A period of change is coming, but changes will be made in partnership in order to improve, achieve more and deliver for all Scotland’s learners. Although there is work to be done, I am proud of what has been accomplished this year, despite all the challenges.

For example, since 1 August, we have delivered our flagship commitment to offer 1,140 funded hours of early learning and childcare to all eligible two, three and four-year-olds. We have ambitious plans in this session to expand early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds, starting with children from low-income households. We will also deliver on our commitment to build a system of wraparound childcare before and after school all year round.

The changes that we are bringing in for young people will pay dividends over their lifetime and help to improve outcomes for their families.

I thank the committee once again for the opportunity to set out the current situation in the sector. I look forward to working with the committee on those issues in future years.

We can learn a lot from what has happened in the most difficult of circumstances. As I said in my opening remarks, an issue that has been very clear to all of us, and which was made clear by the Government equity audit, is that the pandemic has affected people—children and young people in particular—in different ways. We are keen to ensure that we move further and faster to deal with overall attainment.

I am determined that the refreshed Scottish attainment challenge funding will deal with a number of issues, one of which will be the variation in outcomes for children and young people across Scotland. Variation in the way that things are done is a good thing, because we should absolutely not have a one-size-fits-all education policy. However, everyone who has an interest in the achievements and attainments of our children and young people should be concerned about a variation in outcomes across the country. We will look at that to see what can be done to speed up the efforts that are being made.

As I said in my opening remarks, we are seeing progress on the poverty-related attainment gap. That has been shown clearly by Audit Scotland and it has been remarked on by headteachers, but Audit Scotland and the education sector in general quite rightly want us to do more and to do it quickly. We are keen to do that. Part of that will be through the work of Education Scotland.

I will give one example of what we have to do from the experience of children and young people during the pandemic. We must look at digital devices. We know that local authorities have done a great deal of work to supply digital devices during the pandemic and, of course, money went into that through Scottish Government recovery investment, but we need to do more on that. That is why we have made a commitment that every young person will have a digital device by the end of the session. We must ensure that children, regardless of where they live, have that support and connectivity and that their schools have connectivity to enable teachers to use digital devices in new ways.

There is a great deal that we can learn. One aspect that I would take from a difficult couple of years is how the education sector as a whole has worked well collaboratively. That has been commented on favourably in recent reports, and I would like that to continue.

I fully appreciate that, as politicians, we will disagree on different education matters—indeed, the education sector has a variety of views on the way forward on different matters—but I would very much like to continue the way that local and national Government, unions, young people, parents and others have managed to come together and work collaboratively in the most difficult of circumstances. If we work in that way, we will have a much better chance of achieving the success that we all want for children and young people.

That was highlighted in the report, and we, as a Government, take it seriously. We have a commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers by one and a half hours per week. That is going through due process with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, and I hope that it will be able to make a big difference.

I point back to a lesson that we have learned but which did not, I think, come as a surprise to any of us who have an interest in education: the professionalism of teachers and the hard work that they undertook to support our children and young people in the most difficult of times. We need to support our teachers to have the time to be able to support our young people. One of the ways that we can do that is through reducing contact time. We will move forward with that commitment to support our teachers further on that.

First, I note that the OECD report was very welcome and timely. We have accepted in full all the recommendations of the review, and I will make further announcements with more detail of how we will take forward their implementation in due course.

One of the aspects that came through loud and clear in the report was that there was wide support for curriculum for excellence. For example, it states that:

“Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence continues to be a bold and widely supported initiative, and its design offers the flexibility needed to improve student learning further”.

The foundations that we have are correct. Professor Stobart said in his report that it is

“an inspiring example equated with good curriculum practice”,

so we have good foundations to build on.

Curriculum for excellence has been in place for some time now, so it is quite right that we look at it. The OECD has challenged the Government to see what more can be done to ensure that it is fit for purpose. I will say more in due course about how we ensure that it is right for the challenges ahead. It is timely for us to do that, given that it has been in place for more than a decade. It is not surprising that changes need to be made.