Hansard

You have already bitten into my time, Presiding Officer.

Like many of my colleagues and fellow MSPs, I became involved in politics—as I have said in previous debates on education—to try to make a difference in our community. Education is the cornerstone of that. It is the foundation of all those desires to change lives. However, changing lives is not easy, and that is why it is important for us to put in place a world-class education system that enables us as a nation to close the attainment gap, thus giving each child the best possible start in life and improving the life chances of our sons and daughters.

The OECD report highlights many positive areas in the Scottish education system, including the fact that our schools are highly inclusive and our levels of academic achievement are above international averages and are distributed evenly. The report stated that

“There are clear upward trends in attainments and positive destinations. Over 9 in 10 of school leavers entered a positive follow-up destination in 2014, and nearly two-thirds of school leavers continue on in education. There has been a continuous upward trend in recent years.”

A key point that I have taken from the report is that the OECD shares the Scottish Government’s view that we have a great opportunity to lead the world in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework. I firmly believe that the framework will play an important role in the drive to close the attainment gap and continually improve Scottish education.

I whole-heartedly share the First Minister’s view that improving a child’s life through education is the most important thing that we can do as a Government. Although the OECD report is positive in noting the many strengths of our education system, like the First Minister it notes the areas that need improvement.

In launching the new national improvement framework, the First Minister stated:

“Despite the progress we are making, nobody can be comfortable living in a country where different levels of wealth create such a significant gap in the attainment levels—and therefore the life chances—of so many children. That’s why the Scottish Government is taking concerted action now.”

I feel that her point goes to the heart of the debate, and what we are trying to do is highlighted in the report. Children in Scotland are performing well, and we are still producing the doctors and scientists of the future. We are getting a lot right, but we need to do more—and quickly—to support all children in Scotland and raise attainment across the board.

The national improvement framework allows the Government, local authorities, teachers and parents to quickly see where there are issues and move swiftly to address them. Although teacher judgment will always be at the heart of the system, we will see new national standardised assessments for pupils in P1, P4, P7 and S3. The Scottish Government believes that, to be able to act swiftly, we need to understand whether what we are doing now is working. Although we have a form of standardised assessment already monitoring children’s progress in local authorities, those assessments have not been conducted consistently and, as a result, there is a lack of information on overall performance at both national and local levels. We need to identify where we need to improve and get on with doing the hard work.

The OECD report makes 12 recommendations for actions to improve Scotland’s education system across areas such as leadership in schools, issues presented by existing data sources and complexities around curriculum for excellence. However, all the indications are that we are already working towards improvements in those areas. Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the Educational Institute for Scotland, said:

“The OECD Report paints a largely positive picture of Scottish education and the ongoing implementation of Curriculum for Excellence.”

The improvements are being achieved and will continue to be achieved by the many initiatives that have been set up and funded by the Scottish Government. It is currently investing £1.5 million a year in the read, write and count campaign to ensure that every child in P1 to P3 has access to library books and education materials to improve early literacy and numeracy. Further investment will see more than £1 million over three years, from 2014 to 2017, in national and local numeracy hubs to raise standards and share best practice in the teaching and learning of maths and numeracy at all levels.

That is all on the back of the many achievements that the Scottish Government has already made in education. The pupil teacher ratio is the same as last year. However, not resting on that, on 3 January this year the Scottish Government announced that funding of more than £2 million is being made available to train an extra 260 teachers—60 primary and 200 secondary teachers—next year.

I could go on all day about the good work that the Scottish Government has achieved in education, but it is important to look at where we have come from, how we got here and how we have improved. We know that 40 per cent of pupils from the most deprived 20 per cent of areas are gaining at least one higher—the figure is up from 23 per cent in 2007—and that a record percentage of young people are in work, education or training after leaving school. In 2006-07, only 87 per cent of school leavers were in positive destinations. The OECD 2012 programme for international student assessment survey shows that we have halted the decline in Scotland’s relative position in maths and reading that began under Labour, and, since 2009—under this Government—we have seen improvements against other OECD countries.

Are we getting everything right in Scotland? No. It would be foolish to say so and to think so. However, is this Government committed to delivering a world-class education system? I would say yes. Just as the Scottish Government has worked in partnership with other organisations and everyone else in education, it is time for us all to work together in this chamber, as we did for curriculum for excellence, for the benefit of every child in Scotland.