Chamber and committees

It was on the Strathesk report and whether the lessons learned have been followed up. Joanna Campbell has just covered that. Given how far over time we are, I am content with that.

Before I bring others in, it sounds as though you are saying that the purpose and principles document was so agreeable that it did not really provide direction. Is that a fair summary? The sector has therefore needed to make a series of decisions about strategic direction itself, because that document did not provide a clear direction of travel.

Thank you. When you are doing corporate planning for your institutions, have you sat down with the purpose and principles document and thought, “Right, we will work back from here”? Does it provide that kind of value and, if not, what value has it provided?

I would love to go further into that point around data with Neil Cowie, but I know that colleagues will come back to that later on.

Does anyone else have anything to add? Do not feel that you have to, if you feel that the points have already been covered. If there are no further comments on that, I will leave it there.

Good morning. To summarise, the SQA’s process review came to the conclusion that it had not done anything wrong and young people had underperformed. For the purposes of my line of questioning, let us accept that premise, even though we may not accept it outwith this line of questioning. To me, it felt like half a review. The SQA got halfway towards finding out what happened but, as soon as it realised that, in its view, it was not the SQA’s fault, it stopped.

When I asked Fiona Robertson about that, she appeared to be of the view that it was not the chief examiner’s role to find out what happened and why young people underperformed in those circumstances, or that it is not the SQA’s job to find out why there is a particular drop in a particular subject at a particular time. That has to be someone’s responsibility in the system, though. To be fair to the cabinet secretary, she said that it is ultimately her responsibility. In practice, though, the cabinet secretary cannot be the one who delves into individual issues with individual subjects every year to ensure that a crisis point is not reached.

I am interested in hearing your views on where in the system that responsibility should lie. Should it lie with the chief examiner or is there someone else in the system who should be responsible for investigating why there is underperformance, if we accept that that is what happened here? Personally I do not accept that but, for the purposes of this question, who should be responsible for finding out the reasons for sudden drops in performance in particular subjects at particular times?

Have you had any indication since the SQA’s review was published that it is genuinely interested in finding out what happened? If we accept the premise of the review, which was that the young people underperformed, have you picked up from SQA senior management that it wants to know the reason for that or are you under the same impression that—frankly—I am, which is that, as soon as it felt that it could take itself out of being responsible, its responsibility for the process also ended?

I was on our predecessor committee eight years ago, when we did a review of the SQA’s performance, and that specific point was brought up: that kind of information is not provided unless you are at a markers’ meeting; it is not provided to the workforce overall. There were clear conclusions, and recommendations were made, but those have not been implemented, and we are now at the point of having to abolish and replace that organisation. It had umpteen opportunities to address those issues. However, I am conscious that I am beginning to stray into other members’ lines of questioning, so I will finish there.

Sophie Kerrigan mentioned the importance of learning about and discussing social media in school. That reminded me that, nine years ago, the committee took evidence on that as part of a review of personal and social education, which was a long-running Youth Parliament campaign that we implemented.

A key part of that was the idea that PSE in schools should be co-designed by young people so that it was relevant to them. Social media was the specific reason for that. Feedback from teachers said that they often were not on the same platforms as young people, or that, if they were, the algorithms were showing them something totally different.

Eight years ago, Education Scotland decided that PSE would be co-designed by young people. At that time you were all at school: most of you are still at school now, or were there recently. Was that your experience? Did you have an opportunity to co-design PSE and to talk about topics like social media?

That is good to know. Thank you.

Were the other topics things that the SQA senior management had asked you to discuss with young people?