Hansard

Delivering an inclusive educational environmental for all speaks directly to the kind of society that we aspire to be. As other members, including Jenny Gilruth and lain Gray, have said, for far too long young people with additional needs have suffered exclusion from education and from society as a whole. Ensuring access to mainstream schools has been a central demand of the movement for equality for disabled people in the United Kingdom, and, indeed, globally for some time. The right to participate in mainstream education is now enshrined in article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which sets out that individuals must not be excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability and that they must be able to access inclusive and quality education on an equal basis with others.

The Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000, which was mentioned earlier, sought to put that right into domestic law by introducing the presumption to mainstream. It means that the default option for all is a mainstream school, ensuring that young people with disabilities and other additional needs have access to a mainstream education. However, it does not mean that the education is automatically inclusive. Mainstream education is not the same as inclusive education. It can and should be a gateway to an inclusive education, but the reality for young people with additional needs in mainstream schools is often far from inclusive.

Since 2010, education spending in Scotland has dropped by about 4.3 per cent in real terms. That means that, each year, about £490 less is being spent per primary school pupil, and £150 less per secondary pupil. It has led to there being over 500 fewer specialist additional support needs teachers and to a loss of about one in 10 additional support needs support staff, and that is at a time when we are identifying more additional support needs among pupils. One pupil in four has such needs—although, as Liz Smith noted, there are issues with the consistency of identification that we certainly need to address. For example, North Lanarkshire, which was mentioned earlier, has an identification rate of about 6 or 7 per cent, whereas West Dunbartonshire has a rate of over one in three children. Those are demographically similar areas and the children come from similar backgrounds, yet there is quite a significant difference.

That has heaped significant additional pressures on teachers, leading to a decline in their working conditions. A recent report by Bath Spa University that has been mentioned in the chamber a number of times in recent weeks describes working conditions in Scottish schools as being “extremely poor” at present. Teachers have less time to spend with each pupil and, with the loss of specialist ASN teachers, the expertise that is necessary to help some pupils is being lost.

Enable Scotland, which has quite rightly been praised by almost every speaker in the debate so far, found that the vast majority of the education workforce—teachers and support staff—do not feel that teacher training and other training have adequately prepared them to teach and support young people with learning disabilities and that there is a lack of support for staff to do that. That has left more than half of our children and young people with learning disabilities feeling that they do not get the right support in school. Pupils are attending mainstream schools, but they are excluded. Whether that involves informal exclusion from class or pupils not being able to take part in school trips or participate in sporting activities, that exclusion is real.

Like other members, I spend a significant amount of my time speaking to teachers. They are working incredibly hard under very difficult conditions to provide an inclusive learning environment, but they are being let down as austerity takes hold in Scottish schools. The challenges here are significant. It is already difficult to provide high-quality training to new teachers who are undergoing their initial teacher education. One year, which is the time for most teachers, is not enough to become an expert on such a vast range of additional needs. In speaking to trainee teachers, I have heard how education on additional support needs can vary significantly between different university courses. Some are excellent and comprehensive and prepare trainee teachers well for the classroom, but others, unfortunately, fall short. Many are somewhere in the middle.

A lot of training on additional support needs takes place in schools, but it is significantly dependent on the trainee teacher being placed with a teacher who has both the relevant experience and knowledge and the necessary capacity. If a trainee teacher is placed with a teacher who is already overburdened, who is struggling with poor working conditions or who does not have the relevant experience or knowledge, the skills are not passed on, and young people are suffering as a result.

I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to work with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and Education Scotland on additional needs in teacher training, further research on the experiences of pupils with additional needs and the development of further resources for staff. I look forward to receiving further details of the actions that the Government intends to take in that regard.

With many new teachers undergoing the one-year course, it is vital that further training opportunities are available. As I said, initial teacher education can often provide only a baseline of experience on additional needs. It is through continuing professional development that teachers have the opportunity to enhance their ability to support pupils. However, with such high workload pressures as a result of staff shortages, teachers often do not have the time that they need to engage in that further training, and austerity has led directly to the erosion of CPD budgets.

The updating of the guidance on the presumption of mainstreaming is a welcome step. The guidance was issued some time ago—I think that I was still at the infant end of my primary school at the time. The situation, as well as our understanding, has moved on considerably since then, so the updating is a welcome and necessary step. However, we must not pretend that new guidance or even the policy in itself will be enough to create an inclusive learning environment for all pupils in Scotland. From today’s debate, I am reassured that we clearly, on a cross-party basis, do not kid ourselves in that regard.

The Government is committed to the principle of inclusive education—of that, I have no doubt—but it must get to grips with the issues that are preventing that in practice. For example, it is not enough to provide targeted pupil equity funding, although Graeme Dey made the point very well that that is absolutely welcome and it is making a difference. What is required is action to reverse the damage of the past decade and allow councils and schools to deliver the support that young people with additional needs require. That means a fair funding package for our local councils. The Government must also explore other levers to ensure that the right priority is being given to additional support needs provision in mainstream schools.

The inspection regime, for example, does not place sufficient emphasis on assessing that. With some adjustment, it could be a powerful tool in ensuring that correct priority is given to the inclusion agenda.

If we are to really, in the words of the Scottish Government,

“bridge the gap between legislation, policy and the practical experience of children, young people and their families”,

we must address the funding issue with some urgency. Only then can we ensure that all young people in Scotland, whatever their needs, can reach their full potential.