Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 21 September 2021

PE1879/D - Provide an accessible and professionally developed learning and teaching resource on Israel and Palestine

The submission of the Scottish Government (19 Aug 2021) commences in 2015 with reference to the emergence of a homework exercise indicative of the use of flawed resources. The submission then jumps to 2017 where the reader is informed that the resource was published on GLOW in a password protected mode, for the eyes of practitioners only, for piloting purposes.

This gap in time leads to significant omissions, all which lie at the foundations of the decision by Scottish Friends of Palestine to submit petition PE1879.

First, we have the absence of reference to the consultation meetings in 2016 of various stakeholder groups for the purpose of considering and commenting on the resource. A note of the contributions of the various stakeholder groups was produced in early 2017. With the exception of one stakeholder group, the go ahead for the resource was given. The members of this one stakeholder group had disparate outlooks and views. One supported the resource. The remainder displayed a high degree of animosity towards the resource with the sentiment expressed that the topic of Israel-Palestine should not be taught in schools.

It was quite clear, at this point, there would be no consensus between stakeholder groups.

Second, we have the absence of reference to the letter of 24/03/17 [See PE1879/B] from the HM Inspector and a Education Scotland staff member effectively announcing that the Scottish Government had delivered on its promise. GLOW was the route of choice for practitioners seeking information so the resource had been placed on the public face of GLOW for all to see. Significantly, the absence of referral to this letter in the Government’s submission avoids the conclusion that, on the assumption that Education Scotland works as a team on the various issues, the message delivered in this letter was not the product of an errant senior staff member. It had wider, if not complete, support from within Education Scotland.

Third, we have timing issues where a near six month absence of contact from Education Scotland is airbrushed away. Just what transpired during these months?

The FOIs reveal that those stakeholders, with a known animosity to any teaching of the topic on Israel-Palestine’ have a track record of lobbying the Government. In the second week of May, as the then Cabinet Secretary’s diary reveals, this lobby had two meetings with Mr Swinney. One consequence of this lobbying activity was the documented (through FOIs) erasure of a piece of long accepted and verifiable Palestinian history from the resource. It was another indication that change for the resource was on the horizon.

It was only then that a pilot (and review) of the resource was proposed. The former was never carried out, the latter was.

We therefore believe it is rather disingenuous and wrong of the Government to state that eight local authorities were “involved in the development of the resource”. In the early days of 2015/16, as members of the Glasgow & Clyde Rights Group, they would have had a presence. By the time Education Scotland was lining itself up to disengage from the resource, North Lanarkshire was the only local authority engaged with the project. In this context it is worth noting this extract from the letter of 24/03/17 from Education Scotland [See PE1879/B] “Education Scotland’s commitment was to facilitate and support the development of the resource which we have done, working in partnership with the remaining members of the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Rights-Based Learning Group”.

Finally, resort to pleading “lack of consensus” amongst stakeholders, is quite simply a red herring. As has been pointed out, the absence of consensus was obvious by the end of the consultation process in 2016. And if there were any lingering hopes of unity, these should have been dispelled by the lobbying activities of pro-Israel groups. However, in transferring the resource to the EIS, it did clear the way for Education Scotland to ignore its own advice and position that GLOW is “arguably the destination hub for staff looking for additional learning and teaching resources or to share ideas and approaches” and consign the resource Palestine & Israel understanding the conflict to obscurity.