Hansard

Two weeks ago, I set out the Government’s vision for education and our proposals for reform. Our ambition is to create a world-class education system in which every child has the opportunity to succeed and the gap between our least and most disadvantaged children has closed. However, we cannot realise that ambition alone. The detail of our reforms needs to be developed in close collaboration with our partners in local government, with our teachers and professional associations and with parents, children and young people. The Scottish Government is fully committed to doing that as we take the work forward.

As one element of that approach, we will address the concerns that the Education and Skills Committee has expressed about a lack of clarity around the process of making policy in education and its implementation. Our review confirms that the formulation of education policy will be the responsibility of the Scottish Government, but I want to establish clearer structures within which that policy will be implemented. I intend to replace a number of groups and committees with a Scottish educational council that brings together representatives of the Scottish Government, local government, agencies, professional associations and other relevant bodies to create a cohesive approach to developing Scottish education.

We recognise that we do not command a parliamentary majority, and I am keen to engage constructively with members across the political spectrum to reach consensus on the way forward for education. This debate marks an important starting point in those discussions.

There are many strengths in Scottish education, and it is important that they are recognised as we consider further reforms. Many children and young people fulfil their potential. Exam results are very good and are improving, and the overwhelming majority of young people leave school to go into a job or training or to continue their studies. We have excellent teachers who are hard working and committed to raising attainment for all. However, we still face significant challenges in our education system. There is still too much bureaucracy, which generates unnecessary workload for our teachers—something that we are actively tackling, to ensure that teachers are literally free to teach.

Our programme for international student assessment and Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy results highlight that performance has declined on a number of measures. No matter what data we use or which aspect of attainment we look at, there is a clear gap between children from more and less deprived backgrounds, and, as Education Scotland noted earlier this year,

“the quality of education children and young people experience within and across sectors is still too variable.”

We must address those challenges, and we believe that ambitious, system-wide reforms that are underpinned by a strong educational rationale are needed to do that.

At the heart of our reforms is the simple, powerful premise that the best decisions about children’s education are taken by the people who know them best—their teachers, headteachers and parents as well as the young people themselves. We want to put the power to change lives into the hands of those who have the expertise and insight to target interventions at the greatest need, and those who deliver education in our schools are best placed to deliver that approach.

To do that, we will empower schools and give them control over what happens in their classrooms. Schools will have a range of new powers, which will be guaranteed in a statutory charter for headteachers. Headteachers will be able to choose their school staff and how those staff are managed. Schools will have control over curriculum content and approaches to learning and teaching, within a broad national framework, because they know what will work best for the children in their care. Schools will also have greater control over their finances, and we have launched a consultation on our proposals for fair funding across the education system. The consultation will run until 13 October, and I encourage everyone to respond to that with their views.

International evidence shows that involving parents, families and communities fully in schools improves attainment, so that is at the heart of the Government’s policy agenda. We will enhance parent councils and modernise and strengthen the legislation on parental involvement to enable all parents to play a role in their local school and in their child’s learning. Significantly, the National Parent Forum of Scotland is contributing to that process by reviewing the existing statute, and that work will substantially inform the agenda that the Government takes forward.

To ensure that schools interact more effectively with families who find it difficult to engage, we will take steps to give every school access to a home-to-school link worker who will make and maintain such links, which are proven to make a strong contribution to closing the attainment gap by effectively engaging young people and their families in their education. Children and young people are at the heart of our education system, and we will strengthen their voice through more effective and consistent pupil participation.

If schools are to lead and to be put centrally into the position of leadership, they must be supported by other players in the education system. All other parts of the system must share a collective responsibility for supporting school improvement, and we must work together to provide that in an effective way.

The Government’s reform agenda envisages a new support structure that will be made up of three key pillars: enhanced career development opportunities for teachers, improvement services delivered by new regional collaboratives, and support services provided by local authorities.

The first pillar is crucial to ensuring that our teachers are strongly supported throughout their careers. Teachers should have opportunities to develop their careers in different ways, whether in the classroom, in specific curriculum areas or in leadership roles. Those opportunities have narrowed far too much in recent years. Professional learning and development are key, and we will strengthen that area. We will streamline and enhance professional learning so that a coherent learning offer is available to all teachers.