Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 December 2020
I rise to support the motion and to move the amendment in my name. I start by paying tribute to all school staff for their efforts in keeping our schools going through this most difficult of terms and to pupils for their determination to keep learning, whatever 2020 has thrown at them. Unfortunately, too often, what has been thrown at staff and pupils has been critical decisions that come at the last minute and that are couched in confusion rather than clarity.
That goes right back to March, when, one day, we were told that schools would stay open and then, almost the next, we were told that they would close and that learning had to go online overnight. Then, after weeks of preparation for socially distanced blended learning, we were told just before the summer holidays that schools would open full time.
There was, of course, the SQA fiasco, when ministers went to the barricades to defend downgraded results until they were forced by pupil protest to respect teacher assessments. Teachers were told that classes would be socially distanced and then that they could not be. Pupils were told not to wear face coverings and then that they must wear them. It is no wonder that teachers have felt increasingly ill-used. That culminated in ministers dealing shambolically with a modest request for a slightly early end to face-to-face teaching before Christmas by wrapping that up with a January holiday extension and then ditching the whole thing at the last minute. Incredibly, the Educational Institute of Scotland now says that teachers in England have been better treated by the Tories than ours have been by the Scottish Government.
Difficult decisions are, of course, unavoidable in the face of the pandemic, but their mishandling was not inevitable if ministers had really listened, as the Deputy First Minister claims that he does. The poet Alexander Scott once satirised Scottish education of the last century in this way:
“A telt ye
A telt ye.”
Well, the Parliament is entitled to say to the education secretary, “We telt ye.” We telt him over and over that downgrading SQA awards on the basis of school performance and not pupil achievement would be a disaster. We telt him that he had to decide on exams long before now, or teachers would tell him that it is too late, as they are now doing.
Only last month, the Parliament explicitly told the education secretary in a Green motion that teachers had to see enhanced measures that allayed their safety fears, but he has not listened. There are no more additional teachers beyond those that he was claiming a month ago, when we had that debate, so there are no smaller classes. There is no funding for improved ventilation, so schools are still sitting with the windows open. There is no more routine testing. Yesterday, he said that he was going to get round to speaking to some local authorities about having a pilot next year, which suggests that we might have invented, produced and delivered a vaccine all before teachers can get routine tests.
Many of the decisions have been the right ones, but too many of them have been the right decisions taken way too late or only after another handbrake turn. That is why we need the additional staff and routine staff testing now, and not sometime in the future. It is why we must get the 2021 award scheme right, which can happen only if the whole scheme of moderation and validation is published urgently and with complete transparency. We cannot repeat the mistakes of last year, when the SQA published its moderation scheme only on the day that the results came out and all hell broke loose. We are saying to the cabinet secretary, “Listen now, and please let us get it right this time.”
I move amendment S5M-23629.2, to insert at end:
“, and notes that the Scottish Government must also instruct the SQA to publish any moderation methodology that will be used in the grading of awards in 2021, in full and in advance of assessment.”
15:39Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.