Meeting of the Parliament 09 May 2017
I think that that should be obvious to Mr McArthur.
The point that I make seriously to him is this: it is not the case that the guidance that has been formulated for the education system for implementation of curriculum for excellence has, at every stage, not been designed in the relevant cabinet secretary’s office in consultation with nobody. Rather, it has all been designed in consultation with professional associations, local authorities and our education bodies. [Interruption.] I hear Liz Smith muttering, but professional associations represent teachers. The guidance has been arrived at by consensus and has been applied.
I accept—this has been a core part of my approach as education secretary—that there is too much of that guidance. There is too much for teachers to work through and there is too much that needs to be woven together to create a sufficiently clear picture. I have therefore taken action to strip back that guidance, which is why I answered Mr Thomson as I did on the guidance that has been issued by the chief inspector of education on the primacy of health and wellbeing, and of literacy and numeracy. We have also set clear benchmarks on the levels that have to be achieved by young people at different stages. We have done that precisely in order to address the issues that Mr McArthur fairly raises with me today.
The survey predates all that because it was undertaken in the spring of 2016, and none of the measures that I have taken have had an effect on the survey detail that we have before us today. We will continue on the relentless agenda, which I have set out to Parliament, to simplify the education agenda so that we can liberate teachers to concentrate on what we need them to concentrate on—learning and teaching.