Meeting of the Parliament 20 May 2015
No, thanks.
I want Scotland to have an education system that is focused on attainment and achievement and which is built around delivering equity and excellence and—crucially—aspiration and ambition.
There are promising signs that we are on track to deliver excellence. Programme for international student assessment—PISA—data for 2012 shows that Scotland performed at above the OECD average for reading and science and outperformed a greater number of competitor countries than in 2009. The PISA data also showed that we narrowed the gap between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. We were the only UK country to do so.
However, I make it clear that the Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy results on numeracy in 2014 and this year’s results on literacy certainly show that we need to step up the pace of change. That is why the Government has made closing the attainment gap so that every child in every community gets every chance to succeed at school and in life a key focus of our programme for government. We are investing £100 million through a national attainment fund over four years, targeting support at local authorities with the most deprived communities and providing schools with greater access to expertise and resources through the Scottish attainment challenge. Attainment advisers for every local authority area are being recruited, and the raising attainment for all programme now has 23 local authorities and 180 schools committed to improving literacy, numeracy, and health and wellbeing.
New duties under the Education (Scotland) Bill to ensure that councils and ministers attach priority to the on-going challenge of inequalities of outcome will underpin that work. I trust that we can rely on Labour members for their support at all stages of that bill.
I will finish by offering members reassurance. They should not doubt my and the Government’s passion and sense of urgency for addressing the issue. We know that we have more to do and that we have to do it now. Every school and every education authority needs to take action. We will not rest until we see clear evidence that educational outcomes are improving for every child in Scotland.
The spirit of consensus that has underpinned curriculum for excellence needs to be maintained and applied to the wider effort. We need to keep clear in our minds our key priorities to ensure that every child in Scotland is on a personal journey to excellence.
I move amendment S4M-13203.3, to leave out from first “believes” to end and insert:
“agrees that reducing inequality, including the attainment gap, is not only important in itself, but is vital to create the conditions to deliver sustainable economic growth over the long term; welcomes the successful implementation of the curriculum for excellence (CfE); notes that, under CfE, pupils generally study a wider range of subjects in S3 than previously, before focussing on a smaller number of subjects for formal qualifications in S4; recognises that this approach is designed to ensure that pupils maximise their achievement by the time they leave school and commands the support of teachers, educationalists and the Parliament; condemns attempts to portray this change in the pattern of exams taken as a reduction in attainment; welcomes the reduction in the attainment gap noted by the OECD’s Pisa study; agrees that more needs to be done to raise attainment and close the attainment gap; supports the recent launch of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, backed by the £100 million Attainment Scotland Fund, the ongoing work with the Raising Attainment for All programme and the Access to Education Fund and specific work on literacy and numeracy, and calls on all parties to reaffirm their support for CfE.”
15:07Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.