Meeting of the Parliament 04 December 2025
I absolutely agree with Stephen Kerr. We need a new vision for how such advice is delivered and we need different organisations to provide the opportunity for extracurricular work outside school so that we can give our young people the ambition to get what is out there.
With my colleague Sharon Dowey, I recently visited the Ayr campus of the University of the West of Scotland. The university is doing a lot of work on the blending of school and university learning. I was hugely impressed by the portfolio of work-based learning and graduate apprenticeship models that it has developed. Those routes offer an alternative pathway into degree-level study for individuals who are employed or wish to go straight into work. Most young people tell us that they want work-based learning. We need to ensure that the systems that we put in place and that we publicly fund match that positive outlook.
When the Parliament was first reconvened, we used to speak more about the aspiration for lifelong learning—the ability for Scots to access the continuous development of skills and knowledge throughout their life. For many people, that is just not the case and the Parliament does not really talk about lifelong learning any longer.
However, I acknowledge the Open University’s briefing, which stated that it has 16,470 students across Scotland, 71 per cent of whom are in employment. That demonstrates the alignment that we need between the provision of education and workforce development. We need to work alongside employers to ensure that we achieve that.