Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2017
Too often, when we debate education in general and schools in particular, we forget the historical context. The truth is that the responsibility of this Parliament and this Government for the education of our children and grandchildren sits at the front of a long and broad historical sweep. It is 500 years since the reformation, which, in Scotland especially, had the revolutionary idea of universal schooling running through it; 145 years since school attendance became compulsory; 50 years since circular 600 comprehensivised our schools and ended the 11-plus; 35 years since standard grades heralded assessment for all; 15 years since the launch of the national debate on education, which led to curriculum for excellence; and 10 years since this Scottish National Party Government assumed responsibility for our schools.
That responsibility began neither when Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister nor when John Swinney became the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills; rather, it spans the introduction of curriculum for excellence in schools and covers a fifth of the history of comprehensive schools in this country. A cohort of pupils have almost completed their whole schooling under the SNP. It is therefore right and reasonable to take this moment to judge the Government’s record on education, as it has invited us to do, but to do so over the past decade.
I suppose that, in a way, the Government’s amendment tries to do that, too. There is not much in it to disagree with, but the trouble is that it is ridiculously partial. Above all, it fails to mention the repeated evidence of slipping standards in literacy, numeracy and science from the Government’s own Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy, its improvement framework data and, most dramatically, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s programme for international student assessment results.
The Scottish Government acknowledges the challenges, but ignores the failures. If we take this week’s positive destination figures, which the amendment references, it is welcome that more young people are leaving school for a positive destination, but we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that children from poorer families are still three times more likely than their richer counterparts to be not in education, training or work. This week, the SNP put out a press release on the figures, which featured—somewhat inappropriately—the convener of the Education and Skills Committee. I have it here. He welcomes the figures, as we would expect, but he then spends two thirds of his remarks denouncing schools in England. The release is completed with a link to the Scottish figures and six links to information on English schools.
For the whole sweep of the history of our schools, we have aspired not even just to have the best schools in the world—[Interruption.]