Chamber and committees

The Framework for the Sustainability and Success of Scotland’s Universities is a collaborative project between the Scottish Government and Universities Scotland and was launched on 18 December 2025.

Development of the Framework is led by a steering group, co-chaired by Scottish Government and Universities Scotland. The process had cross-party support and has the backing of staff and student unions, which have been invited to help drive the direction of the work by joining the Steering Group. The Steering Group has met three times since the first meeting in January 2026.

The Steering Group, leading the Framework, will deliver its work in three phases, working through the period of the May 2026 election, and has agreed to present a concluding report to the Scottish Government and Parliament over the Winter.

During the previous parliamentary session, funding was provided for academic year 2025-26 whereby 475 pupils across a number of schools and Local Authorities received support from the tutoring pilot. The tutoring programme aims to support individuals from deprived backgrounds to improve their attainment and potentially go on to participate in higher education, where they can access the opportunities and outcomes made available via post-school education.

The Scottish Government has made a commitment to build on this pilot and ensure more young people can access bespoke support to raise their grades and attainment.

We will consider the end-of-project evaluation and impart report post-August 2026 exam results to inform our approach for this parliamentary session.

In January 2025, the First Minister launched the Scottish Government anti-racism commitment, which acknowledges that racism exists within our education system, interpersonally and institutionally. This Government is committed to eradicating that racism through our anti-racist actions and policies.

We are tackling racism through the Anti-Racism in Education Programme, embedding anti-racist principles across the curriculum. We also provide funding to Education Scotland to deliver professional learning for teachers on anti-racism, including the award-winning Building Racial Literacy programme. In March 2026, the Scottish Government published a Whole School Approach to racism and racist incidents in schools, which is designed to assist school leaders, school staff, and local authorities to implement a consistent and robust whole school approach to responding to racism and racist incidents in schools.

In relation to school education, the Scottish Government provides grant funding to the Development Education Centres to deliver the Global Citizenship in Scotland programme. This provides professional learning for educators to build the skills and confidence they need to deliver Learning for Sustainability and Global Citizenship Education. In 2026-27, this funding totals £330,000. We also provide grant funding to Keep Scotland Beautiful to deliver the Climate Action Schools programme, which includes delivery of Eco-Schools Scotland. Global Citizenship is one of the optional topics learners can choose as part of their Eco-Schools work. In 2026-27, this funding totals £425,000.

In addition, the government’s curriculum agency, Education Scotland, continues to promote the work of Global Citizenship Education organisations through its educator networks, professional learning opportunities and via the Education Scotland website.

Scottish Ministers are supportive of the principles of the European Declaration on Global Education to 2050, in particular its emphasis on climate justice, equity and equality, sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and human rights.

The Declaration aligns with the Scottish Government’s commitment to Learning for Sustainability (LfS) in schools, which includes Global Citizenship Education. LfS is embedded in key national education policies and frameworks and is reflected in our National Improvement Framework. LfS is an entitlement within the Scottish 3-18 curriculum, and both sustainability and social justice are reflected in the General Teaching Council for Scotland Professional Standards for Teachers.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s Anti-Racist Curriculum Principles, Breaking the Mould, include significant connections with global citizenship. In particular, that children and young people will be critical thinking global citizens that challenge discrimination and prejudice through an understanding and awareness of the behaviours, practices and processes that create injustice in the world.

Teacher employment practices are matters for local authorities as employers however Local Government is responsible for providing a complement of teachers and all the necessary staff that best meets the needs of each school and its pupils within the resources available.

However, we know there are challenges in some places and in subject areas and that is why we are working to encourage more students to pursue teaching careers through the Teaching Bursary Scheme, which offers £12,500 to individuals undertaking graduate teacher training in hard-to-fill subjects including Maths, Technical Education and Science.

We also recently ran a recruitment campaign, delivered between January to March, was aimed at encouraging more students to take up a career in teaching, specifically in hard to fill subjects and rural areas. Priority subjects that were covered include STEM, Modern Languages and Home Economics.

Where a subject cannot be offered by a school, national guidelines encourage flexibility, enabling schools to work collaboratively with other local schools or colleges or through online, digital approaches.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of empowering headteachers in schools across Scotland, as set out in the SNP manifesto, to ensure continuous improvement.

We will build on the 2018 Joint Agreement with COSLA on school empowerment, which led to the creation of the Headteachers’ Charter and Devolved School Management Guidelines as we strive to support and advance these ambitions. This work provides the foundations for school leaders to take a greater role in enhanced decision-making in areas such as staffing, budgets, curriculum and school improvement.

Over the past decade there has been £1.75 billion investment into the Scottish Attainment Challenge programme. This includes Pupil Equity Funding, which has been one of the most significant changes in Scottish education which Ministers have introduced over the last ten years, empowering headteachers with direct funding to support the children and young people in their schools. Scottish Attainment Challenge funding has been publicly committed for 2026-27, and we are carefully considering how best we can build upon the progress that has been made.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to Public Service Reform, specific projects on education and skills are bringing together a range of education bodies with the purpose of delivering improved service outcomes and supporting the education system overall, including headteachers in our schools.

The following table provides the outcome of applications that Advice Direct Scotland have received to the Scottish Emergency Heating Oil Scheme.

These management figures are taken from a live administrative database and so could be subject to future revision. There are various caveats with the data and should not be regarded as officials statistics, these caveats are noted below.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament to tackle violence against women and girls.

We are working closely with stakeholders to ensure the effective implementation of the Female Genital Mutilation (Protection and Guidance) (Scotland) Act 2020. Progress to date includes the development of court rules proposal papers, preparing statutory guidance and reviewing existing training provisions and awareness raising approaches. We aim to implement the Act by the end of 2026, although this timeline is also dependent on the readiness and capacity of partner organisations.

Despite the implementation challenges in relation to Part 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021, the Scottish Government and associated partner agencies are committed to working together to consider how the protection notice and order scheme could be implemented.

A working group was established in 2025 to consider possible legislative changes to the 2021 Act to enable the protection notice and order scheme to be implemented in a way that is sustainable, deliverable and affordable.

The working group has met five times and has identified a number of potential changes to the legislation, with the intention of these informing a consultation in 2026. Following the election we will now look to refine the potential legislative changes further, with a view to a targeted consultation later in 2026. Following any such consultation and analysis of responses I will be able to provide a more detailed update on timelines for bringing forward the necessary legislative changes to enable the domestic abuse protection notice and order scheme to be operationalised.

We are adopting a public health approach to online harm as an overarching approach to protecting children and young people from the risk of a spectrum of harm linked to the online world.

We understand the spectrum of harm can range from, among others, loss of concentration and wasted childhood time at one end, through disruption to education and the absorption of harmful often sexualised, misogynistic or violent content in the centre, to online bullying, incitement to self-harm and grooming at the extreme end. A public health approach allows us to respond appropriately to each of these risks and to adapt as the technology advances.

Ministers confirmation that we will introduce legislation to create phone free learning environments is an early policy and legal response to the spectrum of harms.

Ministers discussed this approach with members of our Online Safety Taskforce on 23 June and developments will be considered as this work progresses.

Another will be the development of a Public Health campaign which will develop the advice we have already published on our Parent Club website that recommends no screen time for babies and infants under 2 years, apart from communication (face time) with known adults. This is in line with World Health Organisation guidelines. The guidance also recommends that children aged 2-4 years should have no more than one hour of screen time per day.

To support our Screen use guidance we have also updated the Baby Box booklet to include information on the importance of early child development, speech, language and communication development, information supporting parental confidence to play and screen use advice. New information has been added to Parent Club providing guidance on managing screen use and also providing advice on how parents can also reduce their screen time.

Building on the comprehensive content currently included on Parent Club we will engage directly with parents and children and young people on what advice they need or want to support their positive digital behaviours. We will also undertake a review of research on the impact of digital media (including screen time and screen use i.e. content) on children and young people’s wellbeing to further inform the Scottish Governments position on children and young people’s positive digital behaviour.