Chamber and committees

The rationale for including that in the wording of the amendment is that it would be the headteacher who would sign off on providing the support rather than such evidence being provided by each teacher. The minister will come in at some point and, if there is wording in the amendment that needs to be simplified or corrected, I will be happy to take that forward.

Welcome back, everybody. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s amendments that we discussed this morning in relation to BSL. That is something that we have raised on a cross-party basis.

I lodged amendment 131 in relation to additional support needs. The recent Audit Scotland report in February pointed to the need for a fundamental review of needs and planning and resourcing for additional support for learning. The amendment comes from a number of discussions with teachers, parents and pupils on the bureaucracy that surrounds additional support for learning. I hope that it will present an opportunity to simplify things for those who need additional support.

Currently, each teacher is asked to provide evidence of additional support needs. The amendment would simplify that to just be one teacher—the headteacher. I hope that that would make a real difference to the guidance going forward and that it would be a helpful reform. There will potentially be additional improvements that can be brought forward ahead of stage 3, as I am sure that members will have other learnings that they would want to bring to the bill ahead of stage 3 proceedings.

I move amendment 131.

As the minister has accepted, there is growing concern around the financial sustainability of the higher education sector as a whole. Given the Scottish Funding Council’s role in monitoring the financial health of the sector, will the minister advise why the publication of its annual report on the financial sustainability of the higher education sector has been delayed from January this year, and will he advise when the report will be published?

I accept that, cabinet secretary, because I think that we need to move this forward. All members who have been part of this committee—not just those of us who have joined quite recently, but those who have served in the Parliament for decades—have wanted to see this reform achieved. I am looking at Willie Rennie when I say that. [Laughter.] As I have said, I accept what the cabinet secretary has said.

I am grateful to the member for lodging her amendments. It is important that the issue is included in the bill.

Each institution that I have met has a very different set of supports available. For example, at the University of Edinburgh, which has a large international student intake, some of its duty of care is related to language barriers. Other institutions have been providing useful support in relation to mental health, which the member has mentioned. They may also provide access to food banks or more holistic support while someone is going through their studies. Is that what the member envisages being created through the bill, or is she just pointing towards what should be a wider package of duty of care? I would hope that the Government would be quite open to such a package being part of the bill and to working on a set of principles around what that could look like.

To get back to the heart of the issue, my concern is that the Government has not said what model it wants and a review is not acceptable. To go back to Liz Smith’s point and to Stephen Kerr’s helpful pointing out of other models in different parts of the UK, we need to see that decision as part of the bill, not a review.

Given the extensive conversation that we have had this morning, would the cabinet secretary and other members be mindful of not moving the amendments to this part of the bill, so that we can go away and look at it again, perhaps including with Ken Muir? He would be a useful person to look at the founding principles that he wanted to see in the bill; at the best model that can be brought at stage 3; and at whether there is consensus on that. If not, as Ross Greer has outlined, the majority in Parliament will take the least bad option, and that will not help to deliver the foundations of what we want these two institutions to do. Is the cabinet secretary mindful of that, so that we can move this meeting forward a bit?

The only way that ministers have been able to meet their target on waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services has been by removing from the waiting times figures young people and children who were waiting for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism diagnoses. That is a fact. It is a shameful situation.

I have been contacted by many parents in Edinburgh who have been forced to go private to seek a diagnosis for their children. In follow-up meetings, their general practice has told them that it will not accept responsibility for the continuing care of those children or deliver the prescriptions that they need. Will the First Minister review that policy? More specifically, will the Government distribute national guidance on prescribing for such young people?

I start by thanking George Adam, my Education, Children and Young People Committee colleague and Paisley mafia member, for securing this debate.

I put on record just how impressed I was to hear about the work that is being undertaken by the University of the West of Scotland when I recently met representatives in the Parliament. I look forward to a visit that I have set up to see some of those leading projects. The University of the West of Scotland is one of Scotland’s largest modern universities and a leading provider of undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree education.

As has been mentioned, since the launch of the foundation, in 2022, the programme has grown year on year, with headteachers, pupils, deputy heads and teachers in schools all remarking on the positive benefits that it is bringing to pupils, and I agree. The foundation programme includes a visit to one of the four UWS campuses and a 10-week university-level module that is delivered by UWS lecturers to pupils in their school setting. The modulated timetable, which delivers one period a week for pupils, is really important. The fact that it is free for schools has broken down many barriers, with the UWS also covering the transport costs of the campus visit, which takes place during the school day.

Pupils are invited to be involved during their S5 year, with the aim of completing the programme by December of their S6 year. As has been mentioned, since the pilot in 2022, the UWS has engaged with more than 2,500 senior pupils across more than 30 schools in Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway and Glasgow city. The UWS is continuing to expand the offer to other schools throughout the west of Scotland.

The University of the West Scotland is rightly proud of delivering the foundation academy programme to senior school pupils across the west of Scotland. As George Adam outlined, this unique initiative offers pupils the opportunity to experience studying at university level while developing key academic and personal skills to ensure that they are prepared for the university experience.

The Parliament’s education committee recently met care-experienced young people to discuss the barriers to higher and further education that they are experiencing. One of the key messages that I heard from them and took away was that many felt that they were unprepared for university life. Many of those young people will be the first person in their family who has ever gone to university, so programmes such as this present a real pre-university experience and an opportunity for them to ask the many questions that they had.

The programme has provided numerous benefits to young people, including the opportunity for them to understand what they can expect beyond the boundaries of secondary school education. Ahead of the debate, I was thinking that it does not seem too long ago since I went to university. I remember the shock to my system—I went from rural Perthshire to an Aberdeen student hall flat with a railway right behind it. Luckily for me, I made many great, lifelong friends at university. However, I acknowledge that that does not happen for many young people.

The transition from school to higher or further education is a big step and a big responsibility for many young people who are leaving home or care for the first time, often to travel across the country or even further afield. Initiatives such as the UWS foundation academy can provide our young people with that extra bit of knowledge on how university life will impact them, help them to answer their many questions and address any fears and doubts that they might have.

Other universities have adopted a similar approach. I know that many of our colleges provide early holistic support to young people, but the foundation academy is the first of its kind in Scotland, which has been recognised through many awards, as George Adam said. If more universities and colleges follow the same lines and offer similar courses, that will help to reduce the number of students who drop out of university, which is something that we should all want to see.

I congratulate all those involved in the programme, which has made such a difference to many people already, on the great impact that it is having on many young people’s lives. I also congratulate George Adam on securing the debate.

Willie Rennie pursued some of the questions that I had about the University of Dundee, cabinet secretary. However, because we have you here, I have to ask, as an Edinburgh MSP, about the University of Edinburgh. I have received hundreds of emails from concerned students and staff there because it is proposing to make £140 million in cuts. What engagement and communications have you and other ministers had with the University of Edinburgh specifically to look at the similar pattern that is now unfolding for members of staff at that university?

Have you undertaken a piece of work specifically on mainstreaming? The subject of mainstreaming and the different needs of children was raised yesterday in Parliament. You have touched on additional support for learning—Audit Scotland’s recent report on that was pretty damning. Are you likely to do a piece of work to look at the different models of different councils and how they are providing different outcomes?