Chamber and committees

I will answer that question. I keep coming back to the point about choice. I think that it is a teacher’s choice what they wish to do. In terms of—

It is. At the moment, what does the bill do? First, the bill formalises recognition for Scots—it recognises it. Secondly, it standardises our response in terms of schools and creates opportunities that did not exist.

I recall being exposed to Scots in Dingwall academy through literature. I do not think that my teacher was necessarily trained in Scots. It would have been quite interesting if she had been trained in Scots; however, she would still probably have been my English teacher.

I think that there is an element of choice here in what a teacher does. That is very different from the case of Gaelic-medium education. If you apply for a job in Gaelic-medium education, there ain’t no choice in whether you are teaching in English or Gaelic—it is a Gaelic-medium school. When it comes to Scots, it is about working with the schools to identify what demand there is from the young people for teachers who are trained in Scots, and whether a school needs to recruit additional resource for that training. There is a big risk—which you picked up on, Mr Kerr, when you spoke about the standardising away of dialects—of overly formalising what we expect from schools, when they have to tailor their curriculum in that way to local interest and opportunity.

I will bring in Claire Cullen, as she is closer to the development of the bill and how we got to where we are at with it.

Yes, and I take it on board now, as you ask that question. Again, we will engage with those who have made that point. It is a Scottish languages bill, and recognising the diversity and variation within those languages is important.

I apologise, but that is what I meant to say: when I said that parents had a right to access Gaelic-medium education, I missed out “to ask”—they have a right to ask for that.

—so I have not been able to do everything that I might have wanted to do as yet, but I will certainly bear that in mind. Is that something that you or the committee has considered? Is there something of interest in that model?

That is a really important question. There is certainly no intention to do that, and if there was any risk at all of doing that, I would be very concerned, so let me commit to take that away, review the evidence that has been given and consider how we avoid any such risk of standardising out dialects, because those are extremely rich dialects, with a wealth of literature, heritage and culture. I would be concerned if there was any serious risk in that regard.

I will take those questions in turn, and I will ask Claire Cullen or Douglas Ansdell to come in on the standards. It is a slightly different approach to the one that was taken for Gaelic. When was the first Gaelic-medium school opened—was it 1984?

Good memory, eh? Therefore, it has been 30 or 40 years in the making, which gives you an indication of how long that work has been going on. There is a different approach to Scots. I ask one of my officials to come in on outlining the different standards.

Obviously, it has to be integrated and there must be local choice. This answer will not satisfy you, but there must be a local element. You are not asking me about Gaelic so I will not give an answer about Gaelic, but I am going to say that we should look at the principle. What the school week looks like in a high school in Glasgow or in Cumbernauld will be very different from what it might look like in the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway. The whole point of the bill is localised distinctiveness.

Some of the work that Douglas Ansdell spoke about is already integrated in the school week. We are not proposing, either with Gaelic or with Scots, that there should be an obligation for every single student in every school to study that throughout their primary school years, but we would like them to be exposed to that. Where that is happening already, or where a school might want to adopt that, standards would be set and there would be support.

On the question about integration, that will look really different from Dumfries and Galloway through to Shetland, not least because, as you suggested, we do not want to standardise what should be distinctive.

I am not sure whether either of the officials would like to say more about how they arrived at the cost figures, but that work is already going on with local authorities. The financial memorandum is an estimate based on the work that is already happening, on the understanding that there might be a need to do a little more work or to pivot to other work.

It is a local choice. A local education committee might want to have more Scots teaching in its schools. That will be an internal conversation for the local authority, because local authorities have the freedom to make decisions. Where funding is already available, we want them to be able to access that. A lot of the work that happens with Scots is done by organisations working closely with schools. I would be really uneasy about making a blanket national statement to answer a question about integrating Scots within the school week, when the whole point is that local schools should reflect local communities.