Hansard

The pandemic has presented enormous challenges for our education system and our young people. The cancellation of the examination diets and the move to remote learning have been unprecedented but were, sadly, required.

The health, wellbeing and learning of our young people and education staff have been priorities throughout, and although I do not claim that we have got everything right, we have made judgments in the most testing of circumstances. Such judgments are about keeping our young people and staff safe, maintaining learning and the benefits that come from teaching, and ensuring that young people’s life chances are not negatively impacted.

As we have charted our way through the pandemic, teachers, support staff and other professionals in our schools, local authorities, national agencies, regional collaboratives and other bodies have been working day in and day out with dedication, commitment and professionalism to support our young people. Their efforts are a credit to our education system and our country.

It serves neither the country nor our children and young people to attack the contributions of some of those staff—in Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority—in return for their efforts. My amendment would therefore remove from the motion the gratuitous and unfounded criticism of the public servants in Education Scotland and the SQA who have worked hard, alongside local authority and school staff and many others, to ensure continuity of education for children and young people. I thank them for their efforts.

Very strong support has been provided across the system, which has been working in collaboration in the face of the threats to education that Covid presents. Education Scotland and SQA have been central to those efforts. Throughout the pandemic, Education Scotland has provided substantial support to learners, teachers and parents. The national e-learning offer provides live and recorded supported learning resources. Professional learning and support for teaching remotely are available, including for wellbeing and wider professional learning. Targeted work takes place with local authorities and schools to support the system on the ground.

For more than a decade before the pandemic, Education Scotland had been delivering the Glow Connect national online learning platform. That foresight meant that we had the tools in place to move to remote learning, and allowed the development of online content offers, including e-Sgoil and the West Partnership’s online school. Last week, Glow had more than 366,000 users logging in a total of more than 2.4 million times.

To support the quality of remote learning delivery, Education Scotland has undertaken five national overview reports since schools returned in January. Those show

“clear evidence that schools have learned from the previous lockdown and are continuing to improve their remote learning offer”.

Mr Rennie mentioned not a single one of the contributions to our education system that have been made by Education Scotland.

As Education Scotland does, the SQA remains absolutely committed to delivering for learners in Scotland. The SQA has worked with the rest of the education system to ensure that learners get the results that they have worked hard for, while maintaining the credibility and standards of qualifications, which members of Parliament have, over the years, generally agreed are important.

Certification has been a very difficult task for all the nations of the United Kingdom—a task that we did not get right for all, at the first attempt last year. That is why I apologised to learners and it is why I commissioned Professor Priestley to review events to ensure that we learn from them and make improvements.

The SQA has engaged widely with stakeholders, particularly in leading partners in co-design of the alternative certification model for this year, and in establishing a learner panel to inform its decisions. The SQA consulted widely on modifications to courses, and has published 116 subject-specific guidance documents on reducing evidence requirements while preserving the validity of, and public confidence in, qualifications. It has also published 134 individual assessment resources to support teachers and lecturers in their assessment activity. Those steps have been significant in making good progress in development of the certification model for 2020-21, with further details that were announced yesterday by the national qualifications 2021 group providing greater certainty to the system.

The support that has been provided to our children and young people to ensure that they can continue to learn and develop is down to the hard work and commitment of the professionals in our schools and elsewhere in the system, including in our national agencies. All of them deserve thanks and recognition from Parliament for their resilience and flexibility, and for the contribution that they continue to make. They do not deserve the gratuitous terminology in the Liberal Democrat motion.

A contribution that extends well beyond the response to the pandemic has been made by all the different players, and includes important work on the future of Scottish education, such as the independent review of Scotland’s curriculum.

The OECD review is looking at many aspects of implementation of Scotland’s curriculum, including the roles and responsibilities of national agencies in providing support and guidance for the curriculum. The Government is always open to considering how best those arrangements should be designed.

The review has been taken forward following OECD methodology and clear guidelines. It will share draft findings from that work in March, with a final report to be published in June, as I outlined to Parliament last April. The OECD is clear that

“Taking into account the current stage of the process and past experience conducting such reviews, the report will be finalised and is expected to be ready for publication in June 2021”.

I look forward to considering the recommendations from the review— [Interruption.] I am afraid that I cannot take an intervention because I have to draw my remarks to a close.

I look forward to considering the recommendations of the review when it is fully concluded. That will be important as we emerge from the pandemic and maintain our relentless pursuit of excellence and equity in education in Scotland. That is the key priority of the Scottish Government pre-Covid and post-Covid, and is what we will devote our efforts to, to ensure that it is the case, in order to provide the best future and the best opportunities to the learners of Scotland.

I move amendment S5M-24137.3, to leave out from “the support” to end and insert:

“teachers, support staff and other professionals working in the education system, whether in schools, local authorities, national agencies, regional collaboratives or other bodies, have provided very strong support to Scotland’s children and young people throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to help them to continue to learn and develop, and have shown resilience, commitment and flexibility in responding to the impact of the pandemic, including during periods of remote learning or when alternative approaches to certification have been developed in partnership, and considers that teachers and others working in the education system deserve thanks and recognition from the Parliament in light of their work during the pandemic, including their role in continuing to contribute to important work on the future of Scottish education, such as the independent review of Curriculum for Excellence led by the OECD.”