Hansard

I am pleased to hear of the minister's change to his previously advertised plan.

A great deal of consensus exists in the Parliament on the subject of today's debate. In the summer of 2002, my party launched the concept of having greater links between schools and colleges. In the autumn of that year, our proposal was adopted by the Conservatives at their party conference. The policy then found support from the Liberal Democrats and, before the end of the year, from the Labour Party. Therefore, the policy is one of those issues that attract commendable cross-party consensus and agreement.

As Education Committee colleagues who visited Glasgow yesterday will confirm, some outstanding work is already taking place in respect of greater involvement of schools with colleges. All 29 of Glasgow City Council's secondary schools have embarked on a school-college liaison along the lines that are promoted in the strategy that is being launched today. The strategy document also highlights the situation in Banff and Buchan, where many pupils are able to attend their local college thanks to the well-organised articulation that exists between schools and colleges, as well as between schools and higher education institutions further on. However, given the document's reference to the fact that those links grew out of the lack of technology teachers in the local schools, we perhaps need to reflect on the figures that were released yesterday, which show a shortfall in the number of such teachers and a drop of 15 per cent in the number of technology students since 1997. Perhaps those warning bells need to be heard.

Our amendment highlights three issues that will be critical to the policy's success: college capacity, pupil accreditation and lecturer training. I acknowledge that those issues are addressed in the document, but our amendment simply identifies that they are key areas on which the policy will stand or fall.

I very much welcome the additional funding that is being made available to address college capacity, but that funding must reflect the differing experiences of colleges in different parts of the country. I suspect that Glasgow colleges have been able to provide some opportunities because of the falling population there, although the city has skills shortages in certain areas. However, in other parts of the country, colleges are bursting at the seams because they are oversubscribed. That is certainly the case here in the Lothians. A big challenge is to ensure that the opportunities that we provide for school pupils do not displace students in subject areas to which additional numbers of older students need to be attracted to meet the urgent skills capacity issues in areas such as the Lothians.

For example, Jewel and Esk Valley College will need 8,500 student units of measurement if it is to return to the SUMs per head of local population that it had in 2001. That is a good example of an oversubscribed college in an area that has a growing population. In plumbing, the college is providing an example of good practice by aiming to have 20 school pupils and 20 apprentices on its introduction to plumbing course this coming year. However, the industry wants 35 apprenticeship places. We do not want a situation in which school pupils might displace prospective apprentices, who would be able to contribute to the local economy by putting their skills into action within the next year or two.

I very much hope that the resources that are being made available will address those capacity issues, especially in areas such as the Lothians, Perth and Kinross and Aberdeenshire where the growing population is placing increased demands on the colleges. In that regard, I know that West Lothian College in my area has particular problems. As the minister will know from the Auditor General's report, the problems stem from a damaging private finance initiative contract, under which 13 per cent of the college's revenue is automatically siphoned off to pay for the PFI. The college now has problems in developing new courses and in increasing capacity, because of the way in which its original construction was treated for capital purposes. I hope that that issue is addressed.

On pupil accreditation, I am pleased to see the progress that the SQA has made. One issue might be the pace of change, as we need to ensure that the courses are available in time. As the minister mentioned, it is also important that the articulation with higher education is considered.

It strikes me—my colleagues who visited Glasgow yesterday will no doubt agree with this—that, as the minister also mentioned, employers want to see confident individuals who can work together and who can communicate their ideas and express their suggestions with confidence. That is an obvious contribution that pupils should be able to gain from their experience of college. I must say that I was a bit disappointed with some of this morning's media coverage, which suggested that the strategy is about only the disengaged and disaffected and how those with behavioural problems might be displaced from the school to elsewhere. The striking thing about the young people from whom we heard yesterday was that they believed that their experience in subjects such as horticulture or construction could help them to re-engage in their studies in other subjects. That needs to be considered.

Another concern that must be wrestled with is the accreditation of college lecturers by the General Teaching Council for Scotland. Indeed, the issue of the relative status of lecturers and teachers, not least in relation to pay, will also need to be addressed. I believe that GTC accreditation is the right idea, but it will need to be carried out with a light touch, especially in the early stages. I am glad to hear that that will be the case. However, there is an issue with the optional status of the proposed professional development award for lecturers, which perhaps should be made mandatory during the programme's roll-out. I recognise the concerns of the colleges, which feel that they should be more aligned with higher education by being affiliated with a professional body for higher education lecturers rather than coming under the auspices of the GTC. Such bureaucratic and administrative issues are probably far removed from the experience of the pupils, but they will be critical to the programme's success.

We welcome the funding streams that have been announced. Already in 2003-04, the Scottish Further Education Funding Council was allocating 6 per cent of its budget to provide for some 44,000 pupil enrolment places in colleges. The additional resources will be helpful, but we need to consider some of the key issues that will be critical in making a difference.

I very much welcome the support that has been announced for the implementation in colleges of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. As the minister will recognise, the Education Committee pushed for that. I also took up the issue with Jim Wallace latterly in respect of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Bill. We need to think about the transition issues for pupils with special needs who transfer from schools into colleges, so I am glad that those issues are being addressed.

We still need some alignment of volume and quantity under the policy, given that an estimated 120,000 pupils—the minister might have the more accurate census figures—could benefit from it. The success of the scheme in Glasgow seemed to come from the fact that all pupils rather than just those who were perhaps underperforming were able to benefit from the experience, which provided a window into the world of work. It was also impressive that teachers recognised that the scheme had expanded their own experiences, which had perhaps been limited.

Partnership between schools and colleges helps to make the curriculum flexible, although it does not replace the need for further curriculum flexibility, which needs to be pursued. It does not replace the wider skills strategy for the economy, but it gives young people an opportunity to see the world of work in a way that is responsive to their education needs. By making their subject relevant to the world of work, it provides a window into that world for them. I am pleased that there is cross-party support for the future provision of such valuable experiences for our young people.

I move amendment S2M-2793.1, to insert at end:

"but, in doing so, recognises that the success of the strategy will depend in particular on the effectiveness of measures that address college capacity, pupil accreditation and training of lecturers."