Chamber and committees

6,213 people have taken part in an Early Years related apprenticeship since 2011-12.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the Scottish Government agency responsible for apprenticeship frameworks, does not hold information on how many of these apprentices were employed as Early Years staff after their apprenticeship.

The following table provides information on Modern Apprenticeship spend drawn down by learning providers for early years related frameworks.

Please note that Skills Development Scotland make funding contributions towards training only. Recruitment costs are covered by employers.

For Foundation Apprenticeships, there was spend of £34,723 to one provider to deliver a 2015-17 pathfinder for the Children and Young People Foundation Apprenticeship Framework.

The decrease in positive responses is clearly disappointing. Education Scotland is currently working with its trade union partners to address the issues raised in the survey.

To support the use of digital technology in schools, the Scottish Government offers to fund a high speed broadband connection via the Scottish Wide Area Network to a central point in every Scottish local authority for use by education establishments. Onward connectivity to education establishments is the responsibility of local authorities. Attainment Advisors are active in every local authority area and are proactively promoting effective practice in reducing the attainment gap. They are available to provide advice and support where necessary.

Through the Scottish Attainment Challenge the Scottish Government is focused on achieving equity in the educational outcomes of children and young people, with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

From April, £120 million will be allocated directly to schools on the basis of the numbers of children and young people in P1-S3 known to be eligible and registered for free school meals. This is on top of the existing £50 million that will continue to provide targeted support for those authorities and schools supporting children and young people in greatest need. These two funding streams, which total £170 million for 2017-18, contribute to our commitment to allocate £750 million during the course of this Parliament through the Attainment Scotland Fund.

Our funding to date has already supported the recruitment of 160 full time teachers across the Scottish Attainment Challenge Local Authorities and Schools Programme.

Our commitment to increase free early learning and childcare to 1140 hours by 2020 is this government’s most transformative infrastructure project. Work has already started to plan for this expansion and we will continue to work with our partners as we take forward our ambitious pledge. This is being supported with additional resource with the Scottish Draft Budget 2017-18 allocating over £60 million in new investment to support the expansion of Early Learning and Childcare entitlement.

We are in regular dialogue with all local authorities, and their representative bodies including COSLA and the Scottish Local Government Partnership, as part of our commitment to taking forward our key education priorities. We have been proactively engaging through existing forums and created new groups to allow for direct and regular engagement.

The Scottish Government takes the issue of violence in schools very seriously.

We recognise that any violence towards staff or pupils is unacceptable and we are working with schools and local authorities to actively tackle serious indiscipline and violence.

The latest Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research did not indicate significant issues with violence in schools and showed that the overwhelming majority of staff found pupils well behaved.

Scottish Government is investing significantly in various violence reduction and preventative approaches, such as Mentors in Violence Prevention and No Knives Better Lives, with children and young people across Scotland as part of a wider strategy to promote positive relationships and behaviour.

Online materials have recently been published giving teachers and school leaders access to effective interventions based on practice examples from around Scotland. This suite of materials will be continuously updated and refreshed with examples of successful approaches, including those based on the best available international evidence.

In October 2016, I announced an independent Review of Further and Higher Education Student Support. The review will consider all relevant data and assess the effectiveness of the current system, making recommendations for beneficial change to ensure all students have access to a fair and effective package of appropriate support.

Professor Scott, the newly appointed Commissioner for Fair Access to Higher Education in Scotland, will be consulted as part of the review process.

As I explained in response to the same question at the budget session of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee you attended in December, the European Strategy line has this year been separated out to establish a new Brussels Office line. The Brussels Office line of £1.139 million added together with the European Strategy line combine to make a total of £2.049 million which is focussed on Europe and our broader engagement activity. This total includes an additional £245,000 which we have added to the European Strategy line this year in recognition of the importance of Europe and in line with our key objective of influencing the world around us on the issues that matter most in helping Scotland flourish. This combined total is therefore 23% higher than the discrete European Strategy line for 2016-17.

In October 2016, I announced an independent Review of Further and Higher Education Student Support. The review will consider all relevant data and assess the effectiveness of the current system, making recommendations for beneficial change to ensure all students have access to a fair and effective package of appropriate support.