Meeting of the Parliament 18 December 2024
The member makes a very good point, but the fact of the matter is that there is no guarantee of any particular representation on the committee as the bill stands. The Government will have to address that and provide more clarity, particularly on the absence of trade unions and teaching trade unions on the board of the SQA.
The bill as drafted also means that the independent inspectorate will be accountable to Government ministers rather than Parliament, leading experts to suggest, as we have heard, that the chief inspector will be left with fewer powers now than at present.
With no link between Education Scotland and qualifications Scotland and no mention of Withers’s recommendations, the bill does not deliver the coherence in education that the Government claims that it does, either. Crucially, one of the starkest reasons that reform is needed is what happened in 2020, on the current First Minister’s watch, when the poorest pupils’ grades were downgraded. On that, worryingly, the bill is lacking, too.
We agree with NASUWT that the lack of equality data hindered the SQA’s ability to fully examine the 2020 approach, and we believe that any new body must have a more robust attitude towards data collection. The Scottish Government’s response that existing duties are a catch-all is insufficient.
The Government has not got the principles, substance, structures or balance of power right in the bill, which is why we cannot give it our full support in its current form at this stage. The committee was clear that the bill required significant amendment.
Our ambitions for reform must be greater than this. We on the Labour benches want to deliver on the recommendations for reform of Professor Ken Muir, Professor Louise Hayward and James Withers, and, yes, we want to abolish the SQA, make the inspector independent and align curriculum with assessment. Reform on that scale would fulfil what the Government claims are the bill’s purpose and principles. However, as I have set out, the bill that is before us does not do that.
It is also difficult to determine whether the bill achieves the Government’s long-term vision for education, because we have yet to get the second part of that conversation, which we are told will come next year. That means that we are being asked to decide on something on which we do not yet have full information.
We do know that any vision will fall flat if the Government does not move on the key recommendations for improvement that people have set out. Those include the splitting of the accreditation function, rebalancing power, giving trade unions a place on the board, mandating robust data collection, ensuring parental representation, guaranteeing that the strategic advisory council reflects the interests of protected characteristics, and aligning qualifications Scotland and Education Scotland.
To be clear, on reform, the Government must do better than this. The bill must change significantly if it is to get our support. If the Government changes direction—I look forward to engaging with the cabinet secretary to help that to happen—and listens to the voices of those who have said that it needs to change, we will support it. If it does not, we will be behind the countless people outside this place who are calling for a change of direction.