Chamber and committees

I know that Mr Quinn wants to come in, convener.

I am conscious that, rather than saying yes or no, Fiona Robertson has said that she is not sure whether it will be comparable. You have said that you might continue with the same method for the following academic year but that you might not, and that you would quite like to go back to some of the old ways of working. Much of the system is in flux at the moment, but stability would be really good for young people and schools. I am a wee bit disappointed that we do not have more clarity from the SQA in relation to this.

I want to check one thing. When the fourth school comes online in 2024—on schedule, I hope—will that meet the current demand retrospectively? I get the point that, when 2024 comes along, the demand may be greater again, so the local authority will always be playing catch-up on infrastructure in relation to demand. Will the current demand be met in 2024?

The deputy convener asked about staffing and recruitment, and Jim Whannel talked about demand outstripping supply, not just with staffing but with infrastructure. As a Glasgow MSP, I was interested to hear that there were 180 requests for primary school placements but that only 140 places were available. I know that Glasgow City Council has a draft Gaelic language plan out for consultation at the moment and that a fourth primary school will come online in 2024. What relationship does the bòrd have with the 32 local authorities in relation to their forward planning to ensure that there is sufficient staffing and infrastructure? As a constituency MSP, every year, I get requests for letters of support for appeals in relation to placement requests, particularly for Gaelic-medium primary school education. As a Glasgow MSP, I would find it helpful to hear any comments that you have on that relationship with the local authorities and on the support, the communication and the quality of the forward planning of each local authority to meet that demand and interest.

Okay. That helps.

Any other comments on that would be welcome, but I have one final thing that I want to ask about. Another aspect of regionalisation was that we wanted to make sure that, in colleges with a number of campuses, there is community outreach work to attract learners who would not normally go to college. I am not talking about learners who are at school, but those in the wider community who have not had a conventional learning pathway—that would be the jargon, I suppose. Hard-to-reach groups would be the other jargon. What work is going on, and has that been enhanced in any way by college regionalisation? How do we reach those students who would not normally get into learning? That is, of course, what the further education sector is there for as well. Any comments on that would be welcome.

It has been interesting to hear about the varied experiences across the country. One of the aims of regionalisation was to make it easier and more straightforward for young people not only to move from school into the college sector, whether to do higher national diplomas, higher national certificates or foundation apprenticeships, but also to articulate from colleges into universities—to move straight into second year at university. Has it been students’ experience that things have improved in recent years in relation to both of those things? Is there an equality of status for those who are at college and doing an HND because that is what they need? There is not a self-fulfilling prophesy that they have to go to university; they go for the HND or the apprenticeship. Any comments on the equality of status across various courses would be very welcome.

It is reasonable for Sue Webber to mention the possibility of overlap. I listened to Ms Clark’s exchange with members, and I took from it that a cross-party group on Europe could take a more strategic or thematic approach than those taken by cross-party groups on individual countries. It is important that the cross-party group on Europe is aware of that, and I think that it is—that is what I took from the exchange.

That could be beneficial to the Parliament. I would be concerned if the group sought to duplicate or overlap with the work of specific, discrete cross-party groups on individual countries. There seems to be a strategic fit for a more pan-European group, which I think was your line of questioning, convener.

It is right that Sue Webber raises those concerns, but I think that it would, on balance, be right to approve the cross-party group.

My apologies, convener, but this might be the most appropriate time to put this on the record. There has been a pattern of cross-party groups coming to the committee—almost like a conveyor belt—and being approved. It is helpful for the committee if there is a degree of challenge and discussion in relation to the approval of cross-party groups. I want to put that on the record, because I have sat on the committee long enough to know that it seems like a procession of cross-party groups, although there has always been concern over their proliferation in the Parliament. Sue Webber and I might have a different perspective on this particular group, but it does the committee a service to be a bit more robust and challenging on the fit of cross-party groups more generally in the Parliament.

I will leave that there.

I have a brief follow-up question for Mr Mullen. We have spoken about what you thought were negatives in your submission. The paper that we have in front of us shows massive increases in successful learners across a variety of groups—adult returners, disabled learners, black and minority ethnic learners and people from deprived backgrounds—right through the regionalisation process. The figures are striking.

My question is coming, convener.

I get that there are concerns in relation to defending your members’ interests, but you must accept that there must be a strength somewhere within regionalisation, as imperfect as you may find it, for that significant progress to be made across all the groups that we want to succeed. That is why further education is there, of course.

I found EIS-FELA’s submission constructive. I did not find it defensive. I want to put that on the record.

I should also say that we do not have comparable figures for Scotland and England for 2020-21 completion rates.