Hansard

I thank Fulton MacGregor for lodging the motion for debate in the chamber and for continuing the work of Kaukab Stewart. I will quickly mention my respect for the inclusion of his constituency, Coatbridge and Chryston, in the motion. I will be a little bit open now. My gran was born and raised in Gartsherrie, along with seven brothers and sisters. After working with the Salvation Army in London, she returned—I hope that Mr MacGregor will forgive the slight diversion—to a neighbouring constituency in Garrowhill. My great-grandfather was the leader of the Gartsherrie silver band, although I was not old enough to hear him play, and my dad went to Coatbridge high school. I have an awful lot of fondness for the area that Mr MacGregor represents. However, I digress.

The motion is about fostering a discussion on a kindergarten stage in Scotland, and I look forward to discussing how that could be done and what the model and the implications of it would be, whether those are unintended or otherwise. I commend Upstart Scotland and other organisations for the work that they do to highlight the importance of an early years education that is based on creative play and social connection. When we think about it, that is not a surprising idea: when I started working at the Parliament a couple of years ago, I was not used to the phone that I was given, so I played with it for a while until I understood its functions. We are more likely to understand how things work by doing and trying, than by sitting and reading a manual. That is human nature.

How our brain functions in formative years should inform early years childcare as well as our educational and societal processes. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University noted that

“When children have opportunities to develop executive function and self-regulation skills, individuals and society experience lifelong benefits. These skills are crucial for learning and development. They also enable positive behaviour and allow us to make healthy choices”.

It went on to say:

“Providing the support that children need to build these skills at home, in early care and education programs, and in other settings they experience regularly is one of society’s most important responsibilities. Growth-promoting environments provide children with ‘scaffolding’ that helps them practice necessary skills before they must perform them alone.”

Understanding the process for developing cognitive function is imperative, as it has many bearings on the issues in society that we are trying to address. Encompassing that in our early years education system will support all children, regardless of their background.

If we are all of one mind—and so far, I think that we are—and we proceed with advancing a discussion about the kindergarten model for Scotland, it is essential that we do not minimise the options that we research right out of the gate. The Nordic models are regularly highlighted in discussions. Indeed, Upstart Scotland focused on the Finnish model and a recent report from Parenting across Scotland pushes a Swedish one. It may be the case that those models fit in well with Scottish anthropology, but we should not presume that a Singaporean model or a Canadian model would not work in Scotland. Upstart Scotland highlighted that very point on its website. Mr MacGregor has already referred to it, by noting that, in 2023, the best performing countries were, in descending order: China, Singapore, Estonia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Finland, Poland and Ireland. China, Estonia, Finland and Poland have a school starting age of seven, and the rest have a school starting age of six.

In conclusion, we should fully embrace the opportunity, but it is not the time to limit the scope of the discussion: we need to look around the world rather than just across the water.