Meeting of the Parliament 01 May 2019
The purpose of curriculum for excellence is to provide young people with the skills, knowledge and experiences that will prepare them for life beyond school and enable them to fulfil their potential. We must support our young people to flourish in our modern, complex and uncertain world.
Curriculum for excellence was introduced after a major national debate on the aims and future of our education system. It represented a deliberate move away from an approach that prescribed the content of the curriculum to one that emphasised the autonomy of the professional teacher and the capacities and learning experiences of the learner. In short, CFE was predicated on the view that our teachers are best placed to know their learners and to work with partners to meet their needs and aspirations. They must have the flexibility to make the correct judgments about the journey of a young person.
Given all that, I am surprised that the debate has focused solely on counting the qualifications taken, with a particularly narrow focus on S4 in the three-year senior phase. Instead of looking at the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve—and, in many cases, succeeding in achieving—it is being implied that the new system is providing our young people with fewer opportunities. I do not recognise that.