Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 February 2021
Mr Swinney refers to the criticism of the national bodies. The review four years ago glided by Education Scotland and the SQA, which sailed on serenely and were untouched. In the meantime in our schools, the curriculum narrowed and pupils took exams in fewer subjects—especially in schools that serve our more deprived communities. Some subjects, such as some modern languages, almost disappeared from the curriculum. The practice of teaching two, three or even sometimes four course levels in a single class became systemic, which was not for a good educational reason but as a way of managing limited resources—particularly because of not having enough teachers. The number of pupils who were identified as requiring additional support soared, while the actual additional support plummeted.
Where were those key educational bodies Education Scotland and the SQA when that was going on? Frankly, they were missing in action. In repeated appearances before the Education and Skills Committee, they first denied that the problems existed at all and then told us that they did not know how widespread multilevel teaching was or whether subjects were being squeezed out of the curriculum. They told us that they were not really sure whether our children were being taught in a three-year-plus-three-year curricular model or a two-plus-two-plus-two model, and they could not tell us whether that mattered. Meanwhile, the SQA continues to assess courses with designated teaching hours that cannot be fitted into the curriculum for excellence timetable.
When the pandemic hit, teachers—who did a heroic job in moving to remote learning virtually overnight—were left for months without leadership from Education Scotland to support those efforts. The cabinet secretary talked about the Education Scotland reviews of remote learning in the second lockdown. He is right that such reviews are taking place, but those are mostly reviews of what everyone else is doing to make remote learning work; they are not about what Education Scotland is doing.
Meanwhile, as Jamie Greene said, the SQA ignored months of advice that it was designing a certification model that was an accident waiting to happen—and, indeed, it happened. We seem to have learned so little. Only this morning, we had yet another iteration of SQA advice, months after exams were cancelled for the second time, when time is again running out and teachers have been saying for many weeks that they needed that information earlier.
Prior to the pandemic, the Parliament, seized of the seriousness of the problems, and without confidence in Education Scotland or the SQA to even recognise, never mind fix, those problems, forced the cabinet secretary to the review. Now we discover that, although that work is in his hands, he intends to use to use the pandemic as an excuse to deny the Parliament sight of the findings. That is not good enough, and the performance of Education Scotland and the SQA has not been good enough, either. It is not gratuitous to say that clearly this afternoon; it is absolutely necessary.
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