Chamber and committees

In a previous evidence session with the Economy and Fair Work Committee, you suggested that more work was required to increase effective retraining routes into careers in digital. You suggested that colleges perhaps do not perform quite as well as private initiatives such as CodeClan. Since then, CodeClan has, of course, gone into liquidation. Has the rest of the ecosystem stepped up since that happened? Who should be doing more on that? For example, we were promised a digital strategy last September. Do you know where that is? What did you mean earlier when you said that CodeClan is coming back?

I have a question on that exact point, which Andrew Sheridan is perhaps best placed to answer. Bill Kidd was asking about awareness, but will training be offered to help the public bodies under your remit to put into practice not only the principles of the approach but the ethos underlying it?

Good morning, Professor Logan. Yesterday, when I was at the University of the West of Scotland, I saw exactly what you are talking about. It was brilliant, and I think that I have seen exactly the same at the University of Stirling. It is hugely exciting to listen to what you have said, but it begs some questions. On whom is the onus to set up and continue to drive forward such campuses? Where will the funding come from?

No, you are very good.

On a similar note, I was very pleased to hear you bringing up an initiative when you talked about Robert Gordon’s College. I think that you referred to the RGC online programme. For the avoidance of doubt, Robert Gordon’s College is an independent school in Aberdeen. It launched the RGC online programme in 2021, and it has just extended that to mature students nationwide. That seems to me to be exactly the kind of thing that you are suggesting that we need to look at. That begs the question: who or which agency should be looking at that, investigating what seems to be best practice, and saying, “How do we scale that to deliver the best outcomes?”?

Forgive me, cabinet secretary, I realise that I am interrupting you, but I asked specifically about Scots. We have a great focus—rightly so, in many ways—on Gaelic, but we do not hear so much about Scots. Therefore, I am asking specifically about the Scots provisions and the economy.

Cabinet secretary, on the statistics that you gave to the convener regarding teachers who can teach Gaelic but are not currently doing so, just so the committee fully understands this, are you proposing that our already very hard-working teachers double up with Gaelic, or are you proposing that they stop teaching their other substantive subject and become Gaelic teachers instead?

To what extent have you considered the Gaeltacht model in the Republic of Ireland?

What are they? What are the initiatives that are planned under the bill that require the funding?

Perhaps I will stick with that point, cabinet secretary. With regard to the obligations that ultimately may come from the Scots part of the bill, where would Scots fit in the school timetable? For example, would it be a choice, as Ben Macpherson talked about earlier, along with modern languages, such as French and German? That would be in the context of falling numbers, with fewer children looking to do modern languages, and Falkirk Council seeming to propose a cut to the school week. Where will that teaching fit in?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. In response to Ross Greer, you talked about the importance of outcomes. Comunn na Gàidhlig has suggested that a powerful and meaningful interim target ought to be 90 per cent of children who enter GME being functionally fluent when they leave secondary school. What is your view of that? Should the concept of functional fluency apply to Scots, too? If so, how is functional fluency assessed if Scots is a category incorporating numerous significantly different dialects?