Hansard

I will always relish the opportunity to celebrate Scotland’s educational success and debate how we should build on it, so I am pleased to speak to my amendment this afternoon.

We have been proud of our education system for centuries, and rightly so. Almost every great leap forward in educational thinking has seen Scotland at the forefront—from the commonplace that, 500 years ago, Aberdeen alone had as many universities as the whole of England, to the idea that everyone should be able to read, write and count being legislated for as far back as 1696 in our predecessor Scottish Parliament. In the 19th century, we had the first women to formally enter undergraduate study—the Edinburgh seven, who were recently commemorated by the cabinet secretary’s colleague Fiona Hyslop—and as recently as my school days, the flawed system of selective schooling was replaced by modern comprehensive schools. Scotland made that leap forwards while others prevaricated, leaving a fractured and fragmented system elsewhere.

Those are historical successes that we can and should build on. We should aspire to regain our global reputation with an accessible, equal education system that is broad in curriculum and world class in quality. How limited, then, is the success that the Government claims in its motion. It is damned by its own faint self-praise. I am reminded of the head scratching long ago as I wrote report cards and searched desperately for something—anything—positive to say about some pupils.

Perhaps the most egregious piece of empty back-patting in the motion is the phrase

“the number of Primary 1 pupils in classes of 26 or more has fallen by 97%”.

We passed a law in this Parliament in 2010 that caps primary 1 class sizes at 25. The question is what is going on with the other 3 per cent. They appear to be in classes that are illegal. This is not a success. It is a failure, because the solemn election promise from the SNP was class sizes of 18 in primaries 1 to 3. It takes some kind of chutzpah to put broken election promises into law and then expect a round of applause for doing it.

The truth is that class sizes have gone up under the Government—and no wonder. That is because there are 4,200 fewer teachers in our schools, and there is a recruitment shortage to boot. The Scottish Government’s own literacy and numeracy survey shows that standards are falling. As for more young people getting the qualifications that they need, that is a hollow boast, too, as higher pass rates fell last year and the year before, and numbers have also fallen in the crucial subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Those who get the qualifications to go to college will find that there are 140,000 fewer college places. As success goes, that is pretty fragile.

If the Scottish Government has done one thing right—the cabinet secretary spoke about this—it was sticking with the curriculum for excellence, but what a mess it has made of that, too. The work was done without enough support and on the good will of overstretched teachers. Initial results from the national 5s last year showed that the unintended consequence has been a narrowing of the curriculum, which was once lauded for its breadth.

The lowest point, of course, was the farce of the new higher maths exam. Alarm bells were rung by teachers, parents and thousands of pupils, who signed petitions. The cabinet secretary refused to listen and now tries to hide her blushes behind an unprecedented 34 per cent pass mark. This morning, the Scottish Qualifications Authority told the Education and Culture Committee that the new higher maths exam was too hard but that it had done its job. It did not do its job for the many pupils who gave up or left the exam in tears and have seen their prospects damaged. It is time the cabinet secretary did her job and ensured that that is sorted for next year.

At least the Government is trying to do the right thing with the attainment challenge. The greatest failing of our educational system is the stubborn fact that a person’s success remains predicated on how well off their family is rather than their talent or how hard they work. We have made it very clear that we support the Government in finally beginning to try to address that, but it is making heavy going of it.

First we had the attainment advisers. The cabinet secretary and the First Minister could not agree on how many attainment advisers there were going to be. The cabinet secretary said that there would be 12, but the First Minister overruled her to put one in every local authority. The adverts came out, and we saw that the advisers might be part time or full time and that the posts might be for a year or two years. I heard what the cabinet secretary said will happen by November; I have also heard that a grand total of seven attainment advisers have been appointed so far.

Then there is the attainment fund of £25 million a year, with no allocation formula. First, seven local authorities got a share. We pointed out, of course, that that meant that many schools in the city of Edinburgh that faced great educational barriers, for example, got nothing. Another 57 primary schools were therefore pulled out of the hat. Who knows how they were identified? That is people making it up as they go along.

Worst of all, the attainment challenge, worthy though it is, is now sinking into a row about testing. We have been clear that the current situation, in which local authorities buy in different diagnostic tests, is inefficient. More consistent data to drive policy is a good thing, but a return to high-stakes testing in primary schools is not. I know that the cabinet secretary says that she agrees with that, but the truth is that the First Minister has tried to pretend to one audience that the Government opposes national testing and to another that it is boldly and radically bringing it in.

James Maxton once said of politics:

“If you can’t ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus.”

The First Minister has tried to ride two horses on testing and has fallen off. Now, the Educational Institute of Scotland is up in arms and the Tories and the league table lovers in the media have thrown their arms around her national tests. I do not think that that is what she meant to happen.

Last month, Kezia Dugdale suggested that, if we are serious about closing the attainment gap, the inspection system should be shifted towards unannounced inspections and the work to close the gap should be assessed. Yesterday, the Government announced just that in a newspaper briefing. Teachers are up in arms again. The idea is right, but the Government’s execution is cack-handed—it is making it up as it goes along.

We support cutting the attainment gap and having a national framework. For that reason alone, we will hold our nose at the empty self-praise of the Government motion and support it. However, this is an incompetent mess and the cabinet secretary needs to get a grip of the situation.

This cabinet secretary and this Government’s greatest failure has been the failure to protect the education budget. For years, this Government has been cutting education spending even as it has been increasing in other parts of the United Kingdom. Now, although it tells us that cutting the attainment gap is a priority, it plans to spend 10 times as much on cutting the price of an airline ticket than it does on closing the attainment gap.

Last month, Kezia Dugdale suggested that, if we are serious about closing the attainment gap, the inspection system should be shifted towards unannounced inspections and the work to close the gap should be assessed. Yesterday, the Government announced just that in a newspaper briefing. Teachers are up in arms again. The idea is right, but the Government’s execution is cack-handed—it is making it up as its goes along.

We support cutting the attainment gap and having a national framework. For that reason alone, we will hold our nose at the empty self-praise of the Government motion and support it. However, this is an incompetent mess and the cabinet secretary needs to get a grip of the situation.

This cabinet secretary and this Government’s greatest failure has been the failure to protect the education budget. For years, this Government has been cutting education spending even as it has been increasing in other parts of the United Kingdom. Now, although it tells us that cutting the attainment gap is a priority, it plans to spend ten times as much on cutting the price of an airline ticket than it does on closing the attainment gap.