Hansard

I believe that we need to put looked-after children at the heart of the attainment gap challenge. We are seeking to provide an equal footing for Scotland’s kids in care within the new focus on children from poorer backgrounds. Amendment 104A would mean that local authorities would have to set out measures for how they will tackle the attainment gap for both looked-after children and children from deprived backgrounds. Education is one of the most important economic policies that we can pursue. If we can give every child in Scotland a world-class education, they will be able to take advantage of the amazing opportunities that their future will bring. The Government will be judged on how it supports the most disadvantaged people in our society, and they do not come much more disadvantaged than young people in care. The system seems to be failing them in ways that it fails no one else. The state owes a particular duty of care to those children because they are all of our children. The state is the parent. We pay the bills and we have ultimate responsibility for their upbringing and future. We cannot address the attainment gap without addressing the educational needs of our young people in care. It is of utmost importance that that should be on the face of the bill. I am grateful for the Government’s support on amendment 104G. I will not keep the committee too long on that amendment, which places a duty on local authorities to consult representatives of trade unions when setting out their measures to tackle the attainment gap. We believe that input from trade union representatives—the people who are on the front line of delivering education and closing the attainment gap—is key to the success of the planning and implementation of any measures. I turn to amendment 107E. The national improvement framework will result in a new era of data being gathered by the Scottish Government on educational performance and outcomes. That new data will rightly support the Government and the Parliament in taking the necessary measures to close the attainment gap and scrutinise the Government’s performance against comparator countries. I believe that international best practice should be at the centre of the new approach. Amendment 107E would require the Government to look again at international benchmarks and studies and how they interact with the national improvement framework. As the amendment says, those studies are “the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study ... the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study” and the “OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey.” I take on board what the cabinet secretary has said about whether she believes that those studies are relevant. The evidence that we have taken from professionals in the field is that those are the international benchmarks against which we should set ourselves. The Government is taking a step towards standardised testing. If we can configure the collection of the new data in such a way that it marries with those international studies and comparisons, that will be the best way to allow us, as parliamentarians, and the country to scrutinise the Government’s performance. We are all ambitious about our country’s future and we all want to cut the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms in order to make Scottish education the best in the world. I want to measure our educational performance and success not against countries throughout the United Kingdom, but against countries throughout the world. By undertaking such a review, we would be able to look again at how we benchmark progress in Scottish education against countries throughout the developed world. As an outward-looking, confident country, Scotland should be prepared to participate in well-recognised, authoritative international studies. On amendment 160, I believe in closing the attainment gap in our schools and we support the Government in its intention to do so. However, we remain concerned that, unless additional resources are focused on those who need them most, the goodwill and efforts of the Parliament and Government will be lost. That is why we are asking the Government to review the progress that is made on the aims of the bill and, specifically, to look at whether extra resources will be required in the context of the additional tax-raising powers coming to the Parliament. That would include looking specifically at whether we should raise taxes on the higher earners to raise extra revenue for the most deprived pupils. 11:30 The truth is that how much we care about this issue will be demonstrated by how much we are willing to invest. It is well rehearsed in the chamber and elsewhere that Labour members believe that we should commit to a higher rate of income tax for higher earners and devote those resources to closing the gap. I accept that legislation is not where such a policy would lie, but we would explore ways of ensuring that the eventual legislation will require proper consideration of the resources—including new additional resources that will be available to the Government—that could be devoted to achieving the purpose of the bill. We are not asking the Scottish Government or members to commit to that position on a higher rate of income tax. Although that is our position, we are simply asking the Government to review the case for further resources once the act is in place and additional powers have come to this Parliament. I turn to amendment 161. We believe that in order to facilitate the closing of the attainment gap, the issue should become a central part of the school inspection regime. A new duty on Education Scotland to examine the measures that schools are taking to reduce the gap will ensure that schools are focusing their efforts on closing the attainment gap; promote greater public understanding of this Government priority and raise the profile of the issue; ensure that schools are recognised for the work that they are doing to close the attainment gap; and allow Education Scotland to share its findings with regard to schools that are succeeding in this area and those that are not. As part of Education Scotland’s review of 2014-15, it suggested that a new, short, focused visit approach should be used in 2015-16. That will involve a school being visited for a short period of two and a half days with a smaller number of inspectors. Some of those visits will be tried out on a short-notice basis of two working days and others will follow a notification period of two working weeks. The visits will have a specific focus on raising attainment and achievement and how a school is addressing the need to close the attainment gap in teaching, learning and assessment. Given that that need is already recognised by Education Scotland, and given the current focus from all parties on the need to close the gap, that measure, along with others, will help to monitor and evaluate progress in this area. I turn to amendments 162 and 163. We believe that a strong legislative framework is needed to secure faster progress in closing the attainment gap in every part of Scotland. In particular, we believe that an ambitious goal is needed to close the socioeconomic attainment gap in children’s literacy and we want a clear approach and ambitious timescales for making progress to be set out in the legislation. The cabinet secretary says that we will not close the attainment gap overnight, and that is right. However, we want there to be an ambitious target to close that gap as soon as possible. The Government needs to set an ambitious target, as it has done in other areas of national policy. We have national targets for fuel poverty, climate change reduction and the eradication of child poverty. No one is saying that ambitious targets in those areas somehow detract from the overall aims. We believe that enshrining targets in legislation will clearly articulate the scale of the Government’s aims in relation to closing the gap. It will promote greater public understanding of a key Government priority, which I believe is the priority of all MSPs, and will raise the profile of the issue further. It will demonstrate the changes that need to occur to make the policy successful and will ensure that future Governments remain committed to this vital objective. Achieving those goals will require greater focus on supporting improvement for the poorest children, who are most likely to fall behind, while being consistent with the responsibilities of education authorities to support all children’s attainment. The amendments will therefore drive a more effective strategic approach to closing the attainment gap at national and local levels. On closing the literacy gap, at present 12 per cent of children are not reading well by the time that they finish primary school. The majority of those children live in the most deprived areas and that is a key driver of the attainment gap in Scotland and has damaging implications for those children’s outcomes in later life. We believe that to close the attainment gap, the immediate priority must be for schools, parents, teachers and the Government to secure rapid improvement in literacy outcomes, particularly for the poorest children. Evidence suggests that that is an achievable goal and that considerable progress can be made over the next decade. We also suggest that attainment gap targets within the legislation could build on the existing attainment goals that are being worked on through the early years collaborative and the raising attainment for all initiatives. They include a goal for 90 per cent of children in participating areas to achieve all their expected development milestones by the time that they start primary school by the end of 2017 and a goal for 85 per cent of children in certain cluster schools to have successfully experienced and achieved CFE second-level literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing outcomes in preparation for secondary school by 2016. However, the current goals do not ensure that improvements are made for the poorest children—those who make up the majority of that 10 to 15 per cent of struggling learners. They are not included in those ambitions. Such improvements do not have national coverage and do not have a statutory status. I move amendment 104A and ask members to support the other amendments in my name in the group.