Meeting of the Parliament 28 June 2017
If Mr Balfour will forgive me, I will give way in a moment.
The educational rationale for the measures is strong, with teams of professionals with specialist skills in different curricular areas working together around the needs of schools.
Improving the lack of curriculum area support has rightly been welcomed by many in the teaching profession, including the Educational Institute of Scotland. Specialists can give tailored advice on how their curriculum area can contribute to closing the attainment gap in literacy and numeracy. They can work with teachers to give advice on how to apply educational strategies and make improvements to the content of their curriculum area. The void that exists between guidance and materials being issued from a national or local level and the implementation of policy in the classroom will now be filled by that approach.
That is central to our mission to strengthen the middle in Scottish education and to deliver in full on one of the key recommendations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s review. We will work with partners to ensure that the experience of current and emerging partnership working informs the detailed establishment of regional improvement collaboratives and we will empower schools and communities to shape the regional offer to meet their improvement needs.
The amendment in the name of Tavish Scott opposes
“top-down regional collaboration and the shifting of further control towards Scottish ministers”.
I agree with those sentiments. The agenda of regional collaboratives will be set by the schools within the respective areas. Schools will set out their needs for improvement and the collaborative will work together to deliver those priorities, fundamentally shifting how support is provided in the system.
I am keen to build on the collaboration that has already emerged between local authorities in the northern alliance, which is enhancing educational practice. That is the fundamental driver of our reforms; therefore, I reassure Parliament that there will be no top-down approach and no shift of control to Scottish ministers.