Official Report 874KB pdf
The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-15571, in the name of Emma Harper, on Open University support for the Scots language. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises that the Open University (OU) in Scotland, in conjunction with Education Scotland, has produced the first of its kind professional learning course for teachers on the Scots language; welcomes the partnership working between both organisations; understands that over 200 teachers have signed up to the course since January 2024 using Scottish Government-funded places; further understands that the course creates a Scotland-wide community of practice where teachers realise the transformative role of embedding Scots language and culture in the classroom; recognises what it sees as the educational, as well as equality, diversity and inclusion, benefits of embedding Scots in the classroom; believes that, with teachers participating from across 12 different secondary subject areas and all primary curricular areas, this demonstrates the strong interdisciplinary potential of teaching Scots; wishes all of the participants every success with their studies; applauds the OU’s first research study into the needs and experiences of adult learners of the language, often New Scots, and notes its work in developing Scots and Gaelic language community education for refugees and migrants in the South Scotland region and across the country, as well as the OU’s pioneering collaboration with NHS Education Scotland aimed at embedding the Scots language in health and social care to enhance staff and service users’ experiences.
The member has provided the following translation in Scots:
Thit the Pairlament recognises thit the Open University (OU) in Scotland in conjunction wi Education Scotland ir produced the first o its kind professional lairnin coorse fir teachers on the Scots Leid; welcomes the pairtnership wirkin atween baith organisations; unnerstauns thit fae January 2024 owre twa hunner teachers hiv signed up tae the coorse, utilisin Scottish Government funded places; further unnerstauns thit the coorse creates a Scotland-wide community o practice whaur teachers realise the transformative role o embeddin Scots language an culture in the cless; further recognises the educational as weel as equality, diversity an inclusion benefits o embeddin Scots leid in the cless; believes thit wi teachers participatin across twal different secondary subject areas an aw primary curricular areas it shaas the strang interdisciplinary potential o teachin Scots an wishes aw participants ivry success wi thir studies; mairowre, applauds the OU’s first iver research study intae needs an experiences o adult lairners o Scots – aften New Scots; thir wark developin Scots an Gaelic leids language community education fir refugees an migrants, as weel as the OU’s pioneerin collaboration wi NHS Education Scotland aimed at embeddin the Scots leid in health an social care tae enhance staff an service users’ experiences.
16:35
Presiding Officer, loons, quines, bairns and weans, muckle, dreich, drookit, foostie and clartie—these are unique Scots words. Scots is one of the three indigenous languages of Scotland, and I wanted to speak today to again highlight my mither tongue. I thank colleagues across the chamber for supporting the motion, which has allowed the debate to proceed the day. There are monie Scots speakers in this place. Thanks also go to Dr Sylvia Warnecke for providing the briefings ahead of the debate. I welcome Sylvia and her PhD student Linda Bruce to the gallery this evenin. I hope that they made it in time, because they might have expected the debate wis gonnae stert at 5 pm.
Scots is spoken throughout Scotland—fae Shetland tae Stranraer, in the lowlands, in our cities, in our northern isles and, of course, in the north-east, where monie folk ca their Scots variant Doric, or the Doric. In the 2022 census, 1.5 million people in Scotland reported that they can speak Scots and almost 2.5 million reported that they can speak, read, write or understand Scots. That is an increase from 2011, when 1.9 million people reported that they had some skills in Scots.
Scots is spoken on a continuum, which means that some people use more and some people use less. Some people use the occasional word or expression such as “wee”, “peedie”, “scunnert” or “sair fecht”. Some folk, such as ma faither, speak in rich, broad Scots, replete wi its ain unique pronouns, prepositions, grammar and word order. We even hear mair and mair Scots on BBC Radio Scotland. Last year, Jackie Dunbar and I met BBC Scotland’s programme leadership, and—
Will the member take an intervention?
Of course I will.
I will probably spik in the Doric. I thank Emma Harper for takkin the intervention. She has gone on aboot Scots contributors makkin a difference. Does she agree that Oor Vyce is also makkin a huge difference in gettin oor Scottish language oot there?
I thank Jackie Dunbar for that intervention. I was about tae come tae Oor Vyce. I know that Jackie Dunbar attended the event last Friday at the Scottish Poetry Library. Phil Reid and the team are doing a great job in promotin Scots wi the Oor Vyce organisation.
When Jackie Dunbar and I met BBC Scotland recently, we asked the leadership whether they would—or could—encourage the presenters tae yaise mair Scots. It is guid tae hear Michelle McManus and Len Pennie in the afternoons, and folk will ken Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove fae their show “Off the Ball”. I thank them for enrichin us wi their fitba banter. It helps the listeners tae hear their native language normalised, which reduces discrimination and stigma. That is important.
Following the stage 1 debate on the Scottish Languages Bill, columns were scrieved fae the press defending Scots, including by Paul Kavanagh, also known as the Wee Ginger Dug, and our very own member of the Scottish Parliament Dr Alasdair Allan.
There are now so many speakers, scrievers, singers and supporters of Scots. Billy Kay, the author and broadcaster, presentit a Scots time for reflection in Parliament in April 2022, and Matthew Fitt, James Robertson and Steve Byrne are also massive contributors. The Scots Language Centre’s Michael Dempster and Laura Green are the secretariat for the cross-pairty group on the Scots leid, of which I am co-convener wi Jackie Dunbar. I thank all the Scots speakers for the work that they do.
Dr Sylvia Warnecke is senior lecturer in languages at the Open University, and she leads the Scots teacher professional learning programme, which was created in conjunction with Education Scotland. Dr Warnecke has undertaken extensive research and teaching in supporting minority and marginalised groups with their linguistic needs, including Scots and deaf communities. She does pioneering work using languages, including Scots, to support the wellbeing of people in care homes, and she upskills overseas social care staff in intercultural literacies and Scotland’s indigenous languages.
To date, the Scots teacher professional learning programme has had 152 fully funded places, which are funded by the Scottish Government, with a further 66 places for 2024-25. The schools in Dumfries and Galloway that are participating in that are Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright primary schools, St Joseph’s college and the high school in Dumfries, and Douglas Ewart high school in Newton Stewart. The course supports teachers to include and embed Scots language and culture in their classrooms. It creates a Scotland-wide community of practice where teachers realise the transformative role of embedding Scots language and culture in the classroom. I ask the Government to continue to place high importance on continuing to fund the course to ensure continued success.
I will touch on the current research that is being conducted by PhD student Linda Bruce at the OU. Members had the opportunity to meet Linda when I held a Scots language drop-in a couple of weeks ago, and she is undertaking the first-ever study of new speakers of Scots. Her study explores the backgrounds, motivations, needs and experiences of adult learners of the Scots language. Those are new Scots—refugees and migrants—who are seeking to participate fully in Scottish society. The OU is also developing work on Scots and Gaelic community education for refugees and migrants. There is so much work going on.
Additionally, the OU’s pioneering collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland is aimed at embedding the Scots language in health and social care to enhance the experience of staff and service users. I heard directly from author and singer Susi Briggs how, when she provided music matters sessions in care homes, she witnessed increased cognitive function and better cognitive reaction when conversing or singing with older persons with dementia in their native tongue, whether that was English or Scots.
It is clear that the OU is critical in shining a light on Scots, and I thank Sylvia Warnecke and everyone involved. Feedback from one teacher who participated in the professional learning programme stated:
“I realise now—not teaching Scots in Scottish classrooms is doing a disservice to the linguistic landscape of Scotland and its people”.
There is lots more that I could say. I am lookin furrit tae the Scottish Languages Bill progressin, and I cannae wait tae hear colleagues’ contributions. I hope that together, in the chamber, we can mark the importance of the Scots leid and that the Parliament will pass a strong Scottish Languages Bill to strengthen Scots across the country.
16:42
I thank Emma Harper for securing the debate and for her passion in campaigning on the Scots language—it is good to see someone in Parliament taking that forward.
Yesterday, for the first time, a Gaelic poet was appointed as Scotland’s makar. It was interesting to see his interview last night on the BBC and other channels, in which he said that he writes in Gaelic and in English and sometimes in Scots. He said:
“We are a multi-lingual nation so it’s important to find ways to speak to each other.”
Listening to his interview last night reminded me of the time when I first became acutely aware of our cultural tapestry of languages, which was when I left the village of Bankfoot or Auchtergaven in Perthshire to go to the granite city to attend Robert Gordon University.
My first memory is of arriving in the Woolmanhill student flats, where I met my flatmates, who had all headed south from the Broch to study. When I walked into the student accommodation, the first thing that they said to me was, “Fit like, loon? Far are you fae?” I had no idea what they were asking me at first, but we soon developed great friendships, and I loved learning the Doric at university. My flatmates spoke in the Doric, but only out of university. In university, they very much put on their Queen’s English—it would be King’s English now. I often thought that they lost part of their culture and identity in doing that.
I will briefly touch on one really important point in the motion, which is about Scots language in health and social care settings. When we were first elected to Parliament, Emma Harper and I were members of the Health and Sport Committee. Because we need to value it, I championed the work that is done in our NHS to ensure that people—especially people with dementia, whom Emma Harper mentioned—can be communicated with. We know that health literacy and the patient experience are important. Older people who live in care homes or who visit GPs often complain that they do not know what they are being told. We need to take that into account, and our health services need to look to do that.
To pick up on what Miles Briggs said about the NHS, NHS Dumfries and Galloway has introduced a Scots course for the Ugandan nurses so that they can look after patients better. Does he welcome that?
I think that that is a great step forward. Last new year, I visited a family friend in a care home in Aberdeen. Lots of international people were working in that care home—that is the nature of care homes—and I think that such work was being done up there, too.
That is an issue that we need to think about. Obviously, it is not the first priority for the NHS, but such work on communication can make a huge difference.
The Scottish Languages Bill gives us an opportunity to take forward that work to make sure that people across Scotland have the confidence to speak in their native tongue and that we are able to preserve and celebrate Scots, which, in this Parliament, is something that we do only on the opening of the Parliament. We do not do it as much as we should.
I welcome the partnership working between the Open University and Education Scotland to produce the first professional learning course for teachers on the Scots language, and I look forward to many amendments being made to the Scottish Languages Bill to ensure not only that we preserve the language but that it is taken up by everyone in Scotland.
16:46
I thank Emma Harper for securing the debate, and I share her commendation of the Open University for its groundbreaking programme, under the leadership of Sylvia Warnecke, which has been simply transformational.
I was able to attend the event that Emma Harper hosted in the Parliament the other week and to meet the young people from Broughton high school and their teacher, Nicola Daniel. The talks that they gave that evening were utterly inspiring. How very different their experience of schooling is from mine, when Burns was rolled out every January. I am a Burns Federation winner for reciting “The Sair Finger”. On the day when I did that, my friend Joe Cassidy beautifully sang “My Heart’s in the Highlands”. Sadly, Joe passed earlier this year, but we were still reminiscing about that experience 50 years on.
I am so pleased that the Open University is reaching out to train teachers in speakin and singin the Scots leid. When I visited a primary 7 class at Cleland primary in my constituency, I met Miss Molloy and saw the incomparable Matthew Fitt deliver a Scots language lesson. Every day is a school day, Presiding Officer. I know that you will find this hard to believe, but I have occasionally been called a besom. What I learned that day was that a besom is a broom. Matthew played a Scots quiz game of quidditch in the classroom with a broom. There were balls and snitches flying everywhere—it was like Hogwarts meets the Broons. A rammy ensued as they all gied it laldie. I will never forget the bairns’ enthusiasm for the Scots they kent, not just from Matthew’s teaching but from the wealth of words from their homes—in other words, their mither tongue.
That brings me to Billy Kay, who has already been mentioned. His book “Scots: The Mither Tongue” changed my perspective of our leid and gave me permission to embrace and enjoy the Scots leid. It led to me enjoying Gibbon’s “Sunset Song” and my favourite, Robert McLellan’s Linmill tales from the Clyde valley, where I grew up, which is published by Canongate Books. I wish that I had known those books when I was younger.
I am glad that youngsters today have the opportunity to read Itchy Coo publications and Matthew Fitt’s translations of children’s classics, which include “The Eejits”, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stane” and “The Laddie, the Mowdie, the Tod and the Cuddie”. I also commend the “Eejit Street” magazine characters that were so loved by the weans at Cleland primary and the Scots Hoose work that has been done in Scottish education with support from the Scottish Government.
As Emma Harper mentioned, Matthew Fitt is one of many Scots language writers, such as Susi Briggs, who writes for Curly Tale Books.
There are all kinds of new and exciting applications for the resurgence of Scots. The cross-party group on the Scottish games ecosystem, which I convene, heard about Aonar, an immersive cinematic virtual reality storytelling experience that is based on Scottish folklore, which is available on Steam. It has been translated into both Scots and Gaelic with support from the Scottish Government.
Billy Kay says in “Scots: The Mither Tongue”:
“In Scotland, for long the site of a linguistic battle based on myths, class bias and crackpot theories, children find it difficult to be fully themselves when the language of their home environment is criticised and devalued by a system that is supposed to be educating them to be at one with that environment. That in itself is bad enough but when much of the speech that is criticised is not ‘bad English’ but ‘good Scots’—the historic national tongue of the children and the language in which much of their great literature is written—the situation surely becomes untenable.”
I agree with him whole-heartedly. He also quotes Hugh MacDiarmid:
“To be yersel’s—and to mak’ that worth bein’,
Nae harder job to mortals has been gi’en.”
I certainly caution against anybody referring to you as a besom in the chamber. I call Foysol Choudhury, who is the final speaker in the open debate.
16:51
I join members in congratulating Emma Harper, who is a great champion of the Scots language, on securing this members’ business debate, and in welcoming the continued work of the Open University and Education Scotland in teaching the Scots language.
For too long, children were shamed for speaking Scots. A 1946 report on primary education said that it was
“not the language of ‘educated’ people”.
We must recognise how much things have changed for the better in recent years. The Open University programme, which helps to embed Scots in schools, demonstrates that. For pupils, the effects of having their teachers communicate on their level can only be positive.
I also welcome the work of the Open University in developing Scots education for refugees and migrants. The “New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy” notes how difficult it can be for people to integrate without language skills, but Scots is not included in traditional English lessons, despite its being used in daily life.
I look forward to seeing the Open University’s research, and to seeing how we can support learning for new Scots. I also note the Open University’s previous success in Scots education. Its first course in Scots language and culture opened in 2019, and it has since taught 15,000 students. It is also important to note that the course is attended by more people from outside Scotland than from inside Scotland. That is a great demonstration of the value of the Scots language and of how it enables learning between cultures and attracts interest outwith Scotland.
I am pleased that Scots remains a living language and am pleased by its revival in recent years. I see that revival in my position as the shadow culture spokesperson for Labour.
Foysol Choudhury touches on something that is important to my heart. As a young Scot over in Canada, I was able to partake in a college course called Scots in 1991, well before there was any such education here. That little migrant child was able to support students over there and to translate Scots text for them. There is a huge thing about the diaspora across the world, but we need to focus on what happens here in Scotland to make sure that our own people and the people who come here to live have those tools.
I thank Elena Whitham very much for the intervention. I totally agree with her.
Creative Scotland has a Scots policy that commits it to funding and to advocating for the language. Just a few weeks ago, it opened its fund for Scots artists. The newest Scots makar says that he wants to build bridges between the Scottish languages, and the previous Scots makar wrote many poems in Scots. We must note that culture plays a vital role in keeping the language alive.
The Scottish Languages Bill is now working its way through Parliament. It calls for promotion of Scots in our schools. Although there is still much to be done on the bill, courses such as the one from the Open University and Education Scotland are a positive step in promoting use of Scots in professional settings. I again join members in welcoming that partnership, and I hope to see more and more teachers signing up.
I invite Graeme Dey to respond to the debate.
16:55
I very much welcome the opportunity both to conclude the debate and to recognise the commendable work of the Open University and Education Scotland in creating the Scots professional learning programme for teachers.
There should be no question that Scots is central to our heritage and our identity. It is part of who we are. I say that as an Aiberdeen loon who is married tae a quine fae the Broch. From our songs, poetry, plays and literature, it is clear that Scots is a key component of our cultural life, but more than that, Scots is alive and well as part of family and community life. I was very much struck by the powerful point that Emma Harper made about dementia.
We have strong foundations to build on, and we should also be able to find encouragement in recent activity. There are public bodies and funded Scots groups that are active in the use and promotion of Scots. We also have good evidence on Scots from the census, and over recent years we have seen more Scots being used in schools, supported by small groups and by individuals, with encouragement from Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
However, Miles Briggs made a very good point about the lack of use of Scots in this Parliament. That is something that we, collectively, should reflect on.
The Scots learning programme is clearly another important step forward, and it builds on the foundations that I noted a moment ago. The course was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills in February this year and has proved to be attractive, popular and successful. Some 206 teachers have already signed up for the course, including teachers of English, history, music, drama and modern studies, and we now have interest from the college sector, too.
The programme is inclusive. It celebrates linguistic diversity, emphasises our cultural heritage and has a focus on local community identity. It also includes reference to people, groups and initiatives that will be recognised as being active in the Scots language community. The learning programme is wide. It demonstrates where Scots can be used in history, geography, creative writing, the arts and more. Anecdotally, we are hearing already how the course is helping with attainment and the building of confidence.
I am pleased that the Scottish Government has been able to support the course with funding. In doing that, we are able to support the teachers who have signed up for the programme of learning. Without doubt, that is an important step forward.
Let me impart some good news to the chamber. Yesterday, the General Teaching Council for Scotland awarded GTCS professional recognition of the course, making it the first Scots language course to receive such status. [Applause.]
I also want to give credit where it is due and recognise the role of the Open University, under the leadership of Susan Stewart. I take this opportunity to wish Susan the very best for the future, following her decision to step down from her role in early April 2025. Susan has made a huge contribution to higher education provision in Scotland and I hope that members in the chamber will join me in acknowledging that. [Applause.]
I also take this opportunity to correct an omission in my opening remarks and to thank Emma Harper for bringing the debate to the chamber. I apologise for not doing so earlier.
Another important step forward is the inclusion of Scots in the Scottish Languages Bill, as we heard earlier. We know that there is good evidence of support for Scots and of progress being made. That has been further strengthened by the bill, which has passed stage 1 and has attracted more than 75 stage 2 amendments to date. I hope that that is a sign of constructive intent to ensure that the bill realises its full potential.
The bill makes a statement about the status of Scots and Gaelic. Our aim is that the bill will clarify the duties on public authorities and make good progress with education support for Scots and Gaelic. For Scots, the ambition is to build on the structures that are in place with a more effective system to clarify the status of Scots, and to see a Government strategy for Scots being prepared and published. Our expectation is that the bill will prove to be an important piece of legislation that will strengthen and bring improvements to the status, profile and use of our language.
In concluding, I return to the course. I have absolutely no doubt that it will add to the quality of learning and attainment in our schools, as is evidenced by the GTCS’s professional recognition and its being recognised in the 2024 Scots language awards.
Thank you very much, minister. I echo your comments about Susan Stewart.
That concludes the debate. There will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business, to allow members on the front benches to change places.
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