Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2019
I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and for a copy of the independent review.
The cabinet secretary stated that, on 19 September last year, the Parliament voted to halt the P1 tests and to review the evidence. I remind him that the Parliament and the Opposition parties did that because we were listening to the many concerns that were being expressed by primary teachers, parents groups and teaching unions, all of whom told us that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that the tests were in the best educational interests of primary 1 pupils. Those concerns were echoed at the Education and Skills Committee on 30 January by other organisations such as Upstart Scotland and Children in Scotland.
My three questions to the cabinet secretary therefore relate to evidence. What specific educational evidence has the cabinet secretary seen that convinces him that he is right and others wrong when it comes to promoting this type of formal testing of five-year-olds as necessary and appropriate, particularly in light of the fact that the Reedy review has not undertaken any in-depth analysis of the evidence from other countries that do not start formal tests as early as P1?
Secondly, in light of the Parliament voting against the P1 tests, why, in mid-April this year, did the cabinet secretary choose to announce modifications to the tests before waiting for the full review to be completed?
Thirdly, the cabinet secretary said in his statement:
“There would have been little value in examining a position from which the SNSAs had already moved on”.
I do not understand why he made that point when his mid-April announcement was doing the exact opposite.