Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has made of the joint statement by the World Health Organization and UNICEF on the need to prioritise in-person classroom-based learning as efforts to manage the Covid-19 pandemic continue. (S6T-00112)

I nominate Stephen Kerr.

Since the legacy report was produced, there has been a major and highly critical intervention from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its report details 10 years of botched reform and bureaucracy that has put teachers under pressure and failed young people. I do not know about other committee members, but I certainly found it embarrassing to read the 150-page document, especially given that many of the OECD’s suggestions were recommended by the Education and Skills Committee in the previous session. Those suggestions were resisted and ridiculed by the SNP Government for years.

Opposition members on the committee in the previous session were accused of politicking, of making baseless criticisms and of talking Scotland down, but we now know that those concerns were, in fact, true and that the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney, was putting his political future ahead of our young people. It is no wonder that the SNP was so keen to keep the report secret ahead of the election.

The material change in circumstances, to borrow a phrase, reframes many of the discussions that we had in the previous session and demands a different approach from the Government. It is therefore vital that we explore in detail the concerns that the OECD has highlighted before we revisit the legacy paper in its totality. I am content to leave that discussion to the work programme agenda item, which will be in private, but I wanted to make those points in the public session.

I have no relevant interests to declare.

When did the cabinet secretary become aware that local authorities were excluding 2020 exam results when using historical data to moderate grades this year? Is she aware that the SQA discussed the use of statistical analysis with local authority directors of education ahead of quality assurance models being designed and adopted?

On a point of order, Convener. My device would not let me vote. I would have voted yes.

There can be no doubt that the exam system has been a disaster in recent years. Young people know that the SQA has screwed them over and it is right that the SQA should pay the price for its incompetence, but the SQA must not be used as a scapegoat for 14 years of Scottish National Party failure.

Historically, rigorous exams have been a strength of Scotland’s education system—a cornerstone of how we help young people to succeed in life. The problem is leadership, not the foundations, yet this morning the cabinet secretary said that she was very open to a debate that could lead to the wholesale scrapping of exams. No Government that is serious about raising standards in our schools can contemplate such a radical break from tradition. It would further diminish our international standing and remove one of the last hallmarks of Scotland’s world-leading system. Will the cabinet secretary clarify whether scrapping exams altogether is seriously on the table?

Certainly.

I think that Mr Lochhead is incorrect in that recollection. Although it is true that our immigration system needs to work better, many sectors of the Scottish economy value having a UK-wide immigration system. We need proposals that work not only for people here in Scotland but for the United Kingdom as a whole. That is what the people of Scotland backed when they voted to stay part of the UK back in 2014.

The SNP forever promises that it will act. It forever promises new plans and proposals on skills, but it does not back them up with the level of commitment or investment that is needed. We know that a skills revolution and mass retraining is possible. To see that, we do not need to look much further than the events of the past year.

I do not claim that this is a positive example, but it shows that it can be done. There are literally thousands of people across Scotland who have shown that it is possible to reskill and retrain in a heartbeat—sadly, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen numerous examples, including the bar workers who started driving delivery vans, the chefs who moved into construction, the beauticians who worked in supermarkets, the tour guides who became home carers and the theatre costume designers who turned their hand to manufacturing face masks. Each and every one of them are unsung heroes of this pandemic who have gone above and beyond, not just to look after their own families, but those of others, too.

However, the truth is that that type of thing should be normal and not exceptional. In normal and not exceptional times, it should be driven by individual choice and not just by economic need, and it should be supported by the Government, because gone are the days of a job for life.

It is time to get serious about supporting people to retrain and upskill, and that means moving past a point where we expect the majority of learning and training to be completed by the age of 22. It means adopting much more innovative and flexible policies such as the individual learning accounts that CBI Scotland is promoting, which would mean people being incentivised and financially supported to enhance their skill sets at key points in their lives.

Will the member give way?