Chamber and committees

If schools and councils do not track and monitor in the same way, we cannot compare anything.

Convener, I am sure that someone else will want to get an assurance that we have to track and monitor consistently across each school and local authority, or we will have a mountain of anecdotal information and nothing that we can compare substantially and robustly.

The conversation this morning has been fascinating. I want to look at Education Scotland’s monitoring role. I will ask about some of the core aims of the attainment challenge and I might refer to some of the stretch aims, which I think are called core plus.

One of the core aims is about the proportion of 16 to 19-year-olds who are participating in education, employment or training. At last week’s meeting of the committee, I waxed lyrical about the positive destinations that have been achieved in my constituency and across Glasgow, which are tremendous given the pandemic and what has happened in the past two years. However, that is a snapshot in time. If we consider a 16-year-old who leaves a school in my constituency, who is monitoring where they are at 17, 18 or 19? We have to be robust in what we measure and we have to ensure that progress is sustained. Does Education Scotland monitor that?

I know, but it is my birthday.

That is very helpful. I will bring in Pamela Di Nardo in a second, but I have a follow-up question that it would be great if you could also address. I know that Mr Clement has a strategic responsibility for performance. I want to know about the 16-year-old who goes into a structured volunteering activity as a positive destination. It is a positive destination if it creates another opportunity for the 17-year-old and another for the 18-year-old, where they can build on that again. It is a lifelong learning pursuit. We need to put in those building blocks.

I accept what Mr Clement said, but he did not say who is doing the monitoring. I have mentioned a longitudinal study in previous meetings, as has Ross Greer. Are we tracking a cohort of 100, 500 or 1,000 students over three, five or seven years? Who is doing that kind of work? If that is not being done, there is a great opportunity for Education Scotland and its successor organisation to do some of that work.

I do not know whether Pamela Di Nardo would like to comment, but those are my thoughts, based on the initial response.

That was really helpful evidence. I thank all four witnesses.

I will be brief. Michael Marra’s suggestion was about embedding the activity in another body of work or another inquiry that the committee might pursue during the parliamentary session. That is what the previous committee agreed to do, and it found the opportunity to do so. Obviously, however, we do not have that opportunity during this session.

“Never say never” is the point that Mr Marra is making, I suppose, but the convener’s point is about not giving a false expectation that things might happen any time soon. I therefore agree that we should close the petition. However, our knowledge of the wider issues that the petitioner would seek to have raised does not disappear with that closure. If there is another inquiry that we can tack those questions on to, we should do so, by all means. Nevertheless, at this stage, rather than having things drag on without being able to fulfil the petitioner’s expectations, I agree that closure is probably the best thing.

That was a really important line of questioning from Councillor Callaghan, as she will be known for the rest of the day.

As the committee’s final contributor, I want to step back and look at some of the evidence that we have received over the past few evidence sessions. Andrea Bradley from the EIS told us that we should look at achievement as much as at attainment, and Jim Thewliss suggested that attainment is too narrow a focus. In that context, we measure what we measure. As a Glasgow MSP, I want to give some data on Glasgow and get Mr Lyons’s reflections on it. The other witnesses can then perhaps come in and flesh out their experience in their own areas.

Mr Lyons, I congratulate you on achieving the goal of a 3 per cent improvement in literacy and numeracy in three years. It is a great achievement. However, there are indicators other than those. What information should we capture routinely across the country as part of the attainment challenge, and what information should we not capture? For example, in Glasgow, 96.3 per cent of school leavers went on to positive destinations. That is a record level for Glasgow, and the figure is above the Scottish average. I should point out that every young person at St Roch’s secondary school, which the committee visited, reached a positive destination. People who live in that area certainly know what deprivation looks like, as I am sure Mr Lyons will agree.

It is also important to put on record that 71 per cent of young people in Glasgow went into higher and further education. In fact, we had record levels of entrants into higher education in Glasgow.

There are two things that we, as politicians, debate, one of which is whether we are addressing the attainment challenge sufficiently. When we look at literacy and numeracy, as crucial as those aspects are, I wonder whether we should step back, say, “Let’s chart this or that, too, to see how successful the attainment challenge has been” and then agree a different dashboard of measures.

I should highlight one final bit of evidence. The teachers from the West Partnership whom we met at St Roch’s secondary school wanted to ensure that we acknowledge, celebrate and champion the excellent achievement that already happens, because sometimes that is lost in the political debate.

In short, what would such a dashboard of success look like? What measures would you like to see in it? Do you have reflections on anything else that I have said? Other witnesses can come in after you respond, Mr Lyons.

It answers my question and a bit more, Mr Lyons, so thank you very much.

I will just put on record that the attainment challenge started in 2015 and PEF started in 2017. Therefore, when I mention positive destinations, I am referring not just to good work that is being done by teachers working with the cohort as they leave school but to work that has been done by teachers over a number of the years for which the attainment challenge has been running. We should not miss that out.

If I do come back, the convener will be upset, because we are running out of time and the other witnesses want to give us the story from their local authorities. Thank you very much, Gerry. That was very helpful.