Meeting of the Parliament 21 January 2016
I am pleased to open this short debate for Scottish Labour. I would like to begin by joining the minister in welcoming the success of Scotland’s young people and Scotland’s growing youth work sector, and in welcoming the significant growth that there has been in young people’s participation in, and completion of, youth awards. That is great news, because the awards network has a key role to play in improving the life chances of young people, in supporting our communities, in ensuring implementation of curriculum for excellence in our high schools, in moving towards the aspiration that we all share of helping our young people to become successful, confident, effective and responsible citizens, and in making Scotland the best place to grow up in.
For some young people, youth awards and youth work more generally are not just things that equip them with greater confidence, motivation and skills: they can be life changing. As the minister outlined, young people’s increasing participation is a great bonus to our local communities. In fact, Volunteer Scotland recently found that young people are much more likely than adults to volunteer, with 45 per cent of young people volunteering compared to 27 per cent of adults. That is good news for the future of Scotland. I hope that that will continue when those young people become adults.
Scottish Labour very much welcomes the increased participation in youth work and the key role that it plays in supporting young people’s personal and social development, as well as in offering access to learning opportunities outside the formal classroom environment. Across Scotland, more than 80,000 adults work with young people through youth work as paid employees or volunteers, reaching over 380,000 young people across the country, the majority of whom—92 per cent—are aged 17 or under. YouthLink Scotland estimates that 53 per cent of young people in Scotland are benefiting from youth work. All that adds up to almost 13 million hours of volunteering a year. That is a record of which to be proud.
Like other MSPs, I was pleased to have the opportunity recently to meet some of my constituents who were keen to share their positive experiences of youth work and to highlight their national call to action, challenging politicians of all parties to better support our youth work sector. The young people whom I met had accessed youth work activities at the excellent Tower House youth hub in my Dunfermline constituency. A couple of them enjoyed it so much that they went on to train to become youth workers themselves. One young person I met—Liam—was referred to Tower House because he was refusing to go to school. He is a transgender young person, and he told me how his involvement in youth work did not just change his life but literally saved it.
Each of the young people to whom I spoke embodied what can be achieved through effective youth work enabling young people to develop and build positive relationships and allowing them to make a difference in their own lives and to the wider community. In particular, the young people whom I met were keen to see much better links between formal education and youth work. Tackling the attainment gap is rightly at the top of the political agenda, and one way in which we can make inroads is to ensure that there is much better recognition of the value of the achievements that are gained through engagement in youth work in informal and out-of-school learning activities. We must ensure that young people can learn in the way that inspires them most, because that can help to end the cycle of disadvantage that affects too many of our young people.
If we are to close the attainment gap and help those who are most at risk of underachievement, a real partnership between formal education and youth work is essential. That is why Scottish Labour’s amendment calls for the adoption of a universal Scottish graduate certificate that would encompass academic, vocational and voluntary achievement. The certificate would be pretty similar to what has been introduced in Wales recently. I know that there are already arrangements in place between some youth groups, including the Scout Association, and schools and that the Scottish Qualifications Authority has been developing ways in which to recognise wider achievement. However, we believe that we need more formal recognition of the value and diversity of achievements both inside and outside the classroom. That would be really important in the senior phase, which, at the moment, is focused too much on measuring success by SQA exam results.