Chamber and committees

I will try to ask some questions that are easy to answer, which should not do any harm. Having listened to everything that the witnesses have said, I am rather sorry that I am not going to school now rather than when I went to school—I did not always go to school, but I should have. This is me being quick, by the way, convener.

I listened to the concerns that were expressed about the provision of vocational qualification routes and the lack of available staff to fill such posts, which Peter Bain mentioned. How can teachers and headteachers change perceptions among pupils and their carers—their parents or whoever—about the value of vocational qualifications? To my knowledge, the approach has always been that people should go for their highers to get on in society, because that is the only way forward. How do you convince people—if they need convincing—that the vocational route is the correct route to follow at school?

Thank you, Mr Withers, for an interesting background and for the review, of course.

On the back of what you have just been talking about, the review suggested the importance of setting national priorities. You might not want to point the finger at who should take responsibility for that, but what are your thoughts on how those priorities could and should be divided? What should be taken into account?

I move amendment 51, convener.

So that we can vote on the amendment, I move amendment 50.

When I attended school, I learned one thing, which was to listen to what people are saying. I have heard a great deal of what you are saying, but I am still going to ask my questions, because we are in the Scottish Parliament and we need to have a bit of talk about politics and how it is handled. We know about the roles of national Government and local government in supporting policy change in education and even driving it. How would the panel suggest balancing those traditional, top-down implementation processes with more bottom-up approaches? I know that a bit of that has been covered already, but how do you think that the two might be mixed together?

Is there a danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water if we change it too radically, too quickly?

No. That is fine. Thank you very much for that.

What are the panel’s views on how structural reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland will support better outcomes for children and young people? I do not mean this in the wrong way, but it is really supposed to be about children and young people rather than the process itself. How will that deliver?

He was just agreeing with what I said; that was all.

Thank you—that is comprehensive. Are you still in talks with the Law Society over the issue, given the questions that it has raised?