Meeting of the Parliament 12 January 2017
I, too, extend my thanks to the Education and Skills Committee convener for opening the debate, and recognise the contribution of all committee members who, since May last year, have worked extremely well together to scrutinise the public bodies and agencies responsible for delivering Scottish education.
The thrust of my speech will be on the SQA and Education Scotland.
I, along with Fulton MacGregor, had the opportunity to visit the SQA in Glasgow to discuss a range of issues with officials prior to our formal evidence session in the Education and Skills Committee on 23 November. That was extremely helpful.
From both the visit and the evidence that the committee heard from Dr Janet Brown, it is clear that, with the SQA going through an intense period of assessment redesign for diet 18, on top of its programme of transformation—which is beyond the commercial activity that it undertakes and business as usual—there are quite serious resource issues.
In answering my question on that very issue, Dr Brown confirmed that the SQA fully expects “to require additional resources” and that, in developing and delivering the new qualifications, it “will be a challenge” to engage with teachers—the very people who we expect to deliver the qualifications. As both Daniel Johnson and Ross Greer mentioned, that comes at a time when the committee has received a substantial body of evidence from teachers that communication from the SQA is poor and that there has been a clear breakdown in trust.
One submission stated:
“I am afraid that my current experience of the SQA is almost entirely negative ... Documentation is highly complex, repetitive and difficult to access”.
To quote my committee colleague Johann Lamont, the SQA is living in a “parallel universe” if it thinks that it has a “strong working relationship” with teachers.
Similarly, in responding to the Education Committee’s survey, a majority of teachers expressed a view that Education Scotland does not improve schooling and that it either contributed “not at all” or “a little” to building a world-class curriculum, improving performance or promoting high-quality professional learning.
The committee’s evidence has pointed to teachers being swamped by guidance and documentation. One teacher cited 81 pages of guidance in five different documents across three different websites. The amount of bureaucracy has caused committee members to warn that the SQA is
“in danger of sinking in a sea of jargon”.—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 23 November 2016; c 20.]
That is almost identical to the concerns raised in relation to Education Scotland, which prompted action to remove 90 per cent of 20,000 pages of examples and case studies in a move to reduce and to clarify guidance.
Further, there was serious criticism from teachers that some exams were the worst they had ever seen. Mistakes and inaccuracies plagued national 5 computing exams and higher maths and geography. In his evidence to the committee, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills stated:
“It is intolerable if there are errors ... in exam papers”.—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 2 November 2016; c 20.]
Dr Janet Brown stated:
“We should not have errors in our exam papers”,—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 23 November 2016; c 9.]
yet those errors are happening. Teachers raised concerns with the committee, saying that
“There have been so many mistakes—from the exam to the UASP”—
a unit assessment support package—
“and ... we no longer trust anything that comes from”
the SQA.
That issue has been touched on by members, particularly Fulton MacGregor. I have to admit that I draw a slightly different conclusion on exams overall, because there is powerful and consistent criticism from teachers about the lack of effective scrutiny and transparency. The SQA believes that mistakes are happening because
“people are working extremely hard”—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 23 November 2016; c 9.]
and that there is a need for it to have “appropriate engagements with institutions” in place to improve quality assurance.
From the evidence, it is clear that the resource issues and failings in leadership need to be addressed. The fundamental fact is that the SQA and Education Scotland have lost the trust and confidence of teachers and that should raise the most serious of concerns for us all. If teachers do not have faith in them, how on earth can we expect parents to have faith in those institutions and to have faith that the system provides quality education to their children?