Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2017
I will start on what I hope is a constructive note, because I think that some of Mr Gray’s analysis is correct, and that some of the cabinet secretary’s analysis is correct. That exchange between them flags up what I think is a deeper problem, which is not about who is right and who is wrong but about the nature of the evidence by which we make our judgments. That came through very strongly at the meeting of the Education and Skills Committee this morning, but it has also been coming through in many studies that have been done on Scottish education.
One of the base problems that we face, which has been picked up by the OECD and by some of our education experts, is that in order to make a value judgment—which is what we are all looking for; I do not doubt the integrity of every member to do what is best for education—we need to be absolutely clear that the base evidence is relevant and accurate. One of the great sadnesses about CFE was that evidence was not taken at the appropriate time. It is therefore very difficult for us to measure progress—or, in some cases, the lack of progress. That judgment is crucial, so if we are going to do what is right for education—which will bind together some points that Mr Gray made and some points that the cabinet secretary has made—that evidence is also absolutely crucial.
I will go back to evidence to the Education and Skills Committee. The committee has been criticised on the bases that some of the judgments that we have made have not been formulated around a wide enough evidence base, that evidence has been unbalanced, and that, in some cases, the committee has perhaps not given due credibility to some people who have been involved in the debate. I worry about that, because I think that one of the most important things in Parliament is its committee system and how we scrutinise what is going on. I give credit to the committee’s current convener, who I think has had a very difficult job in trying to marshall the evidence.
The committee had to apply a lot of our value judgments on what teachers were saying to us in formal evidence to committee, in evidence that we heard in private focus groups, and in evidence that we, as members of the Scottish Parliament, collect when we go round the schools. We have had to listen to the teachers in great numbers and to all the associations that represent them, but it does not matter whether it was geography teachers, the Modern Studies Association, computing experts or people in the unions, because much of the other part of the research base was not there, which makes making a judgment difficult.
On assessing where we stand on CFE just now, I say that there are very good things going on in Scottish education—of course there are, and we need to acknowledge that. Incidentally, just before I came into the chamber, I heard about the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland being ranked third in the world for performing arts education institutions. That is a tremendous accolade for Scottish education, and we should all recognise it. [Applause.]
However, let us not detract from the motion. Mr Gray is absolutely right to flag up a lot of the great difficulties in education just now. When the PISA results came out, the cabinet secretary had the good grace to acknowledge the extent of the challenge that we face. Let us just deal with the extent of that challenge, because—my goodness!—it is extensive. The PISA scores show us exactly where we have to go to ensure that we are bringing Scottish education up—not just for the lower attainment group but for the higher attainment group, as well. It is not just about closing the attainment gap; it is also about raising the level of the whole of Scottish education. We know from the PISA scores exactly how much we have to do.
We also know that we have problems in teacher recruitment, which were well spelled out by the Labour Party this afternoon. Last week, we learned that we have serious shortages in key subjects including English and maths. That is a serious worry for education.