Hansard

Yes. There is much in that argument, although I suspect that it would be inordinately helpful to teachers the length and breadth of the country if the Deputy First Minister, rather than making the argument that he has just given, could give clarity on the numbers. I suspect that that would be welcomed by the Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee as well. However, the broad point that he makes is, of course, correct.

Those 348 pages have been issued by Education Scotland to provide that clarity. The new benchmarks in one of the areas that are the responsibility of all teachers—health and wellbeing—are published in three categories, and there are 70 pages of new reading in that single curriculum area alone. Mr Swinney has often chided me, saying that information is not for all teachers, but in this case it is for all teachers. My question to the Government and Education Scotland is how that lives up to the claim that

“Benchmarks draw together and streamline a wide range of previous assessment guidance”.

Perhaps the Deputy First Minister could tell the Parliament how many of the 20,000 pages have now gone.

Secondly, the report says:

“Improving the consistency of learning and teaching needs to be a key priority for all secondary schools.”

Some teachers put it to me the other day that Education Scotland has something of a brass neck saying that, given its inability to ensure curricular consistency in the implementation of curriculum for excellence.

The final point that I want to pick up from the report is about this statement:

“Towards the end of the period covered by this report”—

that is, in 2016—

“we found that many schools were indeed re-visiting the design of their S1 to S3 curriculum in the light of the experience they had gained of designing new senior phase programmes.”

That so many schools are revisiting the design is in large part due to the vague and contradictory advice that they feel they have received from Education Scotland.

The chief inspector said on Monday that schools do not

“yet provide all children and young people with consistently high-quality learning”.

His report warns that, unless that is tackled,

“we will not achieve the national ambition of excellence and equity”.

However, which Government quango has been responsible for implementing curriculum for excellence since 2011? The answer is Education Scotland, which is led, of course, by the chief inspector. His final, main recommendation is on better implementation of curriculum for excellence. Which education body has been charged by four successive Scottish National Party education cabinet secretaries with implementing CFE? The answer is Education Scotland.

I suggest to the Government that the Deputy First Minister’s governance review needs to start right here, with his own quango. We must separate the implementation of curriculum for excellence from evaluation, put policy and guidance into the ministerial office and have intelligent educationists working constructively with schools, encouraging school clusters and the essential links to colleges and universities with vocational courses. We must make the inspection of education quite separate. The inspectorate must be an independent body of people who look objectively at the success of the education system and the schools within it, rather than looking over their shoulders because their Education Scotland colleagues are responsible for the guidance that they are assessing.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority also needs reform. Its effectiveness was questioned by the Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee because of the inherent contradiction in the multivarious roles that it is asked to carry out. It is an arm of Government; a regulator; a monopoly provider of a service for which it charges money; and, indeed, an exporter.

As CFE has been introduced, the Scottish Qualifications Authority has been responsible for new exams. That work should have been done in conjunction with Education Scotland and other parts of Government. Why was the inevitable impact on teachers, pupils and schools not closely monitored? The reality is that there has been an unsustainable increase in teacher workload, a breakdown in trust between the SQA and teachers and a threat of industrial action.

The SQA’s chief executive, Janet Brown, told the committee that the SQA finds communication

“an extremely complicated and challenging area”.—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 23 November 2016; c 6.]

Teachers cite SQA websites and online resources as being barely adequate, and difficult and time consuming to navigate. Communication is not difficult. Of course it needs concerted action and attention, but we suggest that, if the SQA cannot get that right, the Deputy First Minister must again step in. Sorting that out must be a priority.

The case for real reform is not just about schools and local councils, as the Government has so far described it. It is about the education secretary’s own quangos. He should reform the SQA and split up Education Scotland’s functions—functions that it should be fulfilling for the benefit of education, for schools and for pupils.

I move,

That the Parliament understands that the Scottish Government’s next steps document on educational governance is to be published in June 2017 and, in advance of this, calls for the inspection and policy functions of Education Scotland to be separated and for a reorganisation of the SQA in recognition of the concerns expressed by the teaching profession to the Education and Skills Committee.