Chamber and committees

I have not yet responded to Professor Hayward’s review, so I am not going to respond in committee today.

Not only do I have to respond to Professor Hayward’s review, but there are a plethora of different reports on my desk. The point that I made at the previous committee meeting was that we need a bit more connectivity between what is happening in the lifelong learning and skills portfolio, which is Graeme Dey’s responsibility, and schools.

We will also be working to a similar timeline—the end of March—if that helps the committee.

I will respond first to Mr Macpherson’s point about CFE being rushed. I think that Mr Russell was Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning when we implemented changes to curriculum qualifications. I was out of the classroom at the time, but I was writing resources to support the implementation of the qualifications. We delayed the changes by a couple of years in response to requests from the teaching profession. We then delayed the implementation of the new higher at the behest of the teaching unions.

However, I agree with Mr Macpherson about the premise behind how we implement qualifications reform. We must think carefully about how we deliver that on the ground. Sometimes there is a bit of a disconnect between what cabinet secretaries or ministers might say in the chamber and the reality in our communities. Given that education is delivered locally, we must really think about how change is delivered and communicated, how staff are supported and how they are given time to develop. For example, I remember trying to write support materials for the new qualifications because the SQA had published only part of the documentation. We must think about the role of the new qualifications organisation in all that. I go back to Professor Louise Hayward’s observations that reform will take time and that we must set out the trajectory and plan for the implementation of changes to qualifications in the future. It will be a big change for the profession if I accept all the recommendations in her report. I am keen to hear members’ views on that when we have a wider debate.

The SCQF has a strong role to play in reform, approach and attitudes, and in establishing parity of esteem. I might have spoken about this in our discussion earlier this morning. Last week, I was in a school in Glasgow where young people were involved in the school ambassador programme. The SCQF’s accreditation of qualifications is really important in setting out to parents and carers the value that qualifications have, so that they understand that, for example, a higher English might be benchmarked to something that has the same number of points attached to it. The young people at that school in Glasgow were telling me about their school’s approach. It has careers fairs where teachers sit at different desks and tell them about qualifications that they might never have heard of. I am looking at Clare Hicks to see whether she can expand on that, but she was not at the visit; neither was Laura Murdoch. From memory, one of the young people told me that she is now going to university to study for a qualification in criminology, because she had an approach from one of her teachers who had told her how that qualification could be used and which careers it could lead to.

We sometimes prescribe too much. We have had a conversation about flexibility, but schools are doing that work anyway. Part of the reform agenda needs to involve pulling together a bit more consistency. Skills Development Scotland and the careers service, in particular, have a role to play in that.

I visited Glenrothes high school, in my constituency, before school started. There is an SDS careers officer embedded in the school community and he knows all the kids there—some kids who have left school still come back to him for advice. I know that not every careers adviser works in that way; Mr Dey spoke at the committee last week about the role of the careers service and how that might change in the future.

That is why, as I said in my opening comments, we cannot divorce what is happening in that space from wider school reform. Parity of esteem for careers has to be part of our response, too. I think that we now have a much better understanding of parity of esteem than we previously did when Mr Macpherson and I were at school—we were definitely at school at the same time, although he might be younger than me.

That understanding has changed, but we need to do more in that space. Nevertheless, when I go into schools, I am always blown away by the number of qualifications that they are now running and the breadth of the offer. We have talked to some extent about narrowing the curriculum, and there is perhaps some truth in that with regard to traditional subjects. However, we can see that subjects such as criminology and higher photography are now being delivered in schools. A range of qualifications are now being delivered, which speaks to Mr Macpherson’s ask around parity of esteem and the value that schools place on such qualifications.

Absolutely—I recognise the member’s point. There is still a hierarchy, and we have not yet got to where we should be on parity of esteem. James Withers made those points pretty vociferously in his report. We need to better understand that issue.

However, our schools are doing a really good job on pathways such as apprenticeships. I have visited a number of schools where colleges now come in to deliver some courses, or young people leave in the afternoon to go to a course. In Glenrothes high school, some pupils go to the nearby college in the afternoon to study a childcare course. In the past, those things might not have happened. There is now much greater connectivity across the education system than ever before.

We are still working towards meeting that commitment. Free breakfasts are actually available in a number of schools across the country because headteachers are choosing to use pupil equity fund money, which is additionality that the Government provides, to invest in free breakfasts. Hundreds of schools across Scotland are already offering free breakfasts. I have asked officials to give me granular evidence and to audit what is currently happening. There is a mixed approach to breakfast provision.

I should also say that some local authorities make political choices to invest in funding breakfast provision. That is a choice for local authorities to make. You might argue that I should provide that additionality to the system. There is sometimes a tension regarding local authorities’ responsibilities. We are working towards delivering the commitment, but I recognise that a lot of schools are already delivering free breakfasts, so I need to have the national picture of what that looks like.

I understand that it was my Government’s commitment. I asked the member where I should find that additionality from in my budget. I also say to the member that I do not yet know what the national picture is in relation to provision of free breakfasts, because some local authorities are taking a decision to deliver them anyway.

I also say to the member that some local authorities took a decision to wipe out school meals debt. Others have not done that, so the Government has provided an additional £1.5 million in this budget to some local authorities that have not been able to wipe out school meals debt, in order to encourage that good behaviour.

In relation to free school breakfasts, funding is provided, for example through PEF, to allow local authorities to take political decisions, at the local level, to provide that additionality. Some have done so. I praise those local authorities for promoting and supporting the nutrition of young people in our schools. Other authorities have taken decisions to invest that funding elsewhere. I want to know what the national picture is. That is why I have asked for an audit of breakfast provision.

On Gaelic, the Scottish Languages Bill will be considered later this year, and we will continue to work with Bòrd na Gàidhlig and others on their obligations relating to a national Gaelic plan. The bill will give Gaelic and the Scots language official status, and it will change some of the ways in which we support Gaelic and Scots in schools, including through changes to education. We will support the plan’s development.

It is worth saying that support for Gaelic has increased from more than £15 million back in 2005-06 to about £25 million in the current budget allocation. Our Gaelic funding is split between money for education approaches and money for what I suppose we would classify as the cultural side of things. For example, MG Alba sits in my budget line, and we support Gaelic broadcasting through it.

Before I answer that question specifically, I will give a very factual answer. My wife sits as a member of the Promise oversight board, so I have an interest. Given that, I will give Mr Rennie my factual response, then I will pass the question on to Andrew Watson to answer the substantive question.

We have allocated £50 million from the whole family wellbeing programme for 2024-25. That is significant investment in relation to how we go about keeping the Promise, and it is working to support local areas to transform some of their services. The Deputy First Minister has lead responsibility for the whole family wellbeing fund.

I defer to Andrew Watson on the policy, having noted my interest.

On diversity, we have our first female chair of the SQA. That is good—it represents progress in the qualifications body. More broadly, we maybe need to give a bit more thought to diversity, because, if you are talking about the advice that I receive as cabinet secretary, that comes primarily from civil servants in the Scottish Government and, to a large extent, advice on learning and reform comes from Education Scotland.

When I was a staff member there, many years ago, the Education Scotland staffing complement depended on secondments. In my experience, that was helpful because it meant staff coming out of the classroom, having a refresh and engaging with pedagogy and changes to the curriculum, then going back into the system. The organisation pivoted away from that model of secondments under the previous chief executive, so it is now quite static. We need to think again about how we refresh some of the thinking that I hear as cabinet secretary to ensure that it is fresh, that it comes from the classroom and that it can deliver tangible improvements.

I can only do so much going out and engaging directly with teachers, but I do it pretty much every week. To go back to Ms Thomson’s point about diversity, if you go into a school, you will see that teachers have the solutions. They know what is working—to go back to Mr Rennie’s point—and they know what is not working, and they know how they could fix it.

When you sit down with a group of teachers, they are always quite pragmatic in coming up with solutions. Therefore, in response to Ms Thomson’s specific point about diversity, there is something to be considered about how we capture that in responding to Professor Hayward’s review as well as the other reviews on my desk.

It feels as though there is a bit of a disconnect—it certainly felt that way when I was appointed cabinet secretary—between where we have got to on policy reform and all the different people who fed in to those reports, if we are talking about consensus and the reality of being a classroom teacher.