Meeting of the Parliament 02 November 2017
The cabinet secretary is absolutely right to place today’s consultation in the context of the development of the policy and legislative framework on disability issues, generally, and additional needs education, specifically, across almost 20 years and across different Administrations. I am honestly not sure how world leading we are on this, but we have certainly come a long way. When the Scottish Parliament began in 1999, far too many of Scotland’s disabled people still lived in long-stay hospital accommodation, excluded not just from mainstream education but from the community altogether. It is hard to imagine that that was considered the norm. The ability to live, participate and learn in the community is now a right that is supported across the chamber and, indeed, across wider society.
One key early moment in that regard was the first learning disability strategy in the Scottish Parliament, and its title, “The same as you?”, encapsulates the principle that we strive for. We must disabuse ourselves of the idea that people with particular needs, physical or otherwise, are asking for something special and extra. The truth is that they want the same things as we all do: to live freely and to have every possible chance to make the most of their lives; and their right to a home, to healthcare and—yes—to an education is no less valid than anyone else’s.
No matter how well we think we have done, we have to acknowledge that we have much further to go, especially in areas such as employment and—yes—education. A presumption of mainstreaming in schools is exactly where the principle of being the same as you takes us in education, but, as the education secretary said—to his credit—in his introduction to the guidance, the measure of that cannot simply be children’s presence in a mainstream school; it is the opportunities in our schools, not just the desks in the classroom, that we are obliged to open up to all.
I have used this example before in debate, but it encapsulates the issue that we are discussing. Many years ago, I taught science in this city at Gracemount secondary school, which in those days shared a campus with Kaimes school for the partially sighted. Kaimes pupils attended some mainstream classes as well as specialist provision, which is one of the models that Mr Swinney talked about and that is in the document.
In my science class, I had one or two pupils with particular needs. In recognition of those circumstances, class sizes were low—14 or so—so I was able to ensure that I gave the extra support required. Quite often, I was supported in my classroom by a specialist teacher from Kaimes school. It was mainstreaming and it worked. As a young teacher starting out, I felt a professional pride in our success.
In the early 1980s, I spent a couple of years working abroad and, when I returned, things had changed. As now, it was a time of cuts and, instead of one or two, there were three, four or sometimes five partially sighted pupils in my classes, all of which were at the maximum class size of 21. There was no specialist support. The truth was that there was no space to give additional needs pupils any additional support at all—they were at a desk in my classroom but not included in my class. I felt guilty about that, but needs must. There was pressure on us—curricular change, new exams, bigger classes all round. Plus ça change.
Mainstreaming may be a much more mainstream idea today, but resources are still at a premium. Since 2010, we have seen a 153 per cent increase in the number of pupils who are identified as having additional support needs, which cannot all be explained by the inclusion of those with temporary or low-level needs. At the same time, the number of ASN support staff is down by 8 per cent and the number of learning support teachers has dropped by 13 per cent. The Scottish children’s services coalition has calculated that spend per pupil on additional support for learning was £4,276 in 2012-13 but only £3,817 in 2015-16. There is more need but less provision.
Clearly, more responsibility for ASL will fall squarely on teachers in general, yet Enable’s surveys tell us that 98 per cent of the education workforce do not feel that teacher training adequately prepares teachers for that role. It is 30 years since I failed those partially sighted pupils at Gracemount high school, but we still seem to be making some of the same mistakes.