Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2025
I have always believed that the greatest gift that any society can give a child is access to a good-quality education that gives them the opportunity to achieve and to reach their full potential. Sadly, for too many children in Scotland, that is not happening. When I speak to parents, pupils, teachers and school staff, they all ask me why the politicians in this place and the politicians in councils cannot work together to resolve the issues. That is where people are at. We know that there are problems and serious issues, and we need to find a way to come together to find the solutions, working with schools, teachers and local authorities.
I was therefore disappointed by the speech that the minister just made, in which she warned us about using youth violence as a political football. None of us would be doing our job if we did not come here and raise these issues, which is why I am grateful to the Conservative Party for giving us part of its business time today in which to speak about them. I ask the education secretary to consider having further debates in Government time so that we can look at how we can work together to tackle these issues.
In fairness to the education secretary, she has always been more than willing to acknowledge that there are serious challenges in our schools. This week, I read in The Courier a report of a public meeting in Glenrothes, which I believe the education secretary was at. I have a host of quotes from teachers and parents that highlight some of the very serious problems that people face in our schools. I suggest to the minister that she does not put her head in the sand. The starting point must be to acknowledge the problems and to look at how we are going to tackle them.
I take on board Bill Kidd’s interesting point about the involvement of schools. I had the pleasure of meeting a P7 class from Fallin primary school in Parliament this morning, and I told them about this afternoon’s debate. I said that one of the issues in the discussion would be the fact that, although the Government has issued guidance on the use of phones in schools, many schools would lean towards a total ban, and I explained the procedures for how that would happen. That generated more discussion than I have ever had before when I have met schoolchildren—up went the hands. The majority of the primary 7 pupils did not want to see a ban, and they demanded to know what my view on it was. I told them that I was leaning towards a ban but that I was, of course, going to listen to them.
Fallin primary school’s phone policy is that children have to hand their phones in at the start of the day. They get them back at lunchtime and then hand them in again after lunch. I was informed that a high school in Stirling has banned phones completely. I say to the cabinet secretary that we need to look at how that initiative is going and how it works.
We need more additional support teachers, more assistant support teachers and more learning support teachers in schools. That is what the education establishment, teachers and schools are telling us. It is good that we are making some progress, but we clearly have problems. We need more resources, more teachers and more learning support teachers. That is the way to move forward.
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