Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government and all its partners have a strong shared commitment to raising attainment for all and closing the attainment gap between children and young people who are most and least advantaged. This commitment to improvement and equity in attainment has a firm foundation in all our key policies and programmes which affect children and young people, the pillars of which are Curriculum for Excellence, Teaching Scotland’s Future, Getting it right for every child, The Early Years Framework and Opportunities for All. More specifically:

The Raising Attainment for All Programme was launched in June 2014 and aims to close the attainment gap between children and young people who are most and least advantaged. 12 local authorities and over 100 schools are part of this programme, which supports consistent improvement in attainment and achievement through the development of a collaborative learning system, the implementation of improvement methodology and by enabling shared learning.

Education Scotland are also encouraging collaboration and continuous
self-improvement through the Schools Improvement Partnership Programme.

The development of Insight will help local authorities and secondary schools to analyse strengths and areas for improvement.

A refreshed Parentzone website will provide more accessible information for parents.

The Scottish Government is also taking forward a number of other activities to focus on the key issues which have an impact on raising attainment and closing the equity gap. These include:

The implementation of Teaching Scotland’s Future to support the teaching workforce;

Establishing a Scottish College for Educational Leadership to support leadership development;

The establishment of literacy and numeracy hubs to facilitate sharing of best practice.

However, we know that there is more work to do. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that an additional 50,000 Scottish children will be living in relative poverty by 2020 because of UK welfare reform, and when housing costs are taken into account, the figure could be as high as 100,000.

Our Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland expresses our commitment to focus on the need to tackle the long-term drivers of poverty, through early intervention and prevention, partnership and holistic services.

Independence will have a significant and positive impact on education if Scotland has control of the welfare, benefits and taxation systems. With independence – and control over these powers – we have a decisive opportunity to put an end to underachievement in our schools that is caused by poverty.

While we cannot mitigate all of the impacts of welfare reform, we are continuing to do what we can within our existing powers and resources to mitigate the worst impacts where possible. Our current and planned funding will result in an investment of at least £260 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16. This will help to limit the most damaging effects of welfare reforms.

Figures from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) indicate that in 2012-13, the most recent year for which information is available; there were 4,904 students at Scotland’s four ancient universities from the 40% most deprived data zones in Scotland, as ranked in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Of these, 1,962 were from the 20% most deprived data zones.

Under this government we have seen growth in the number of students from deprived data zones to ancient universities since 2006-07.

The Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013 introduced statutory widening access agreements as part of the wider outcome agreement dialogue between the SFC and each higher education institution in Scotland. Progress is monitored by the SFC and reported annually through their Learning for All publication.

Tackling educational inequality is an agreed priority for all education partners, so our collective financial resources should be allocated to support that. The majority of education funding flows through local government. For 2013-14 Scotland’s local authorities’ provisional outturn total net revenue expenditure was £11.716 billion. Of this figure, £4.608 billion (39.3%) was on education.

However, we know that there is more work to do. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that an additional 50,000 Scottish children will be living in relative poverty by 2020 because of UK welfare reform, and when housing costs are taken into account, the figure could be as high as 100,000.

Our Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland expresses our commitment to focus on the need to tackle the long-term drivers of poverty, through early intervention and prevention, partnership and holistic services.

Independence will have a significant and positive impact on education if Scotland has control of the welfare, benefits and taxation systems. With independence – and control over these powers – we have a decisive opportunity to put an end to underachievement in our schools that is caused by poverty.

While we cannot mitigate all of the impacts of welfare reform, we are continuing to do what we can within our existing powers and resources to mitigate the worst impacts where possible. Our current and planned funding will result in an investment of at least £260 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16. This will help to limit the most damaging effects of welfare reforms.

Figures from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) show that the proportions of Scottish domiciled, full time undergraduate first degree students from the 40% most deprived data zones, as ranked by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, who did not continue into the next year of study at one of Scotland’s four ancient universities were:

It is not possible to confirm if these students embarked on another course of higher education study after leaving their original course.

In a letter of guidance issued to the SFC on 31 July 2014, I confirmed that the Scottish Government wants to improve retention rates and the level and quality of support for students who need more assistance to successfully complete their course, particularly at those universities performing less well in this regard.

The letter of guidance 2015-16 is available at:

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/aboutus/letterofguidance/letterofguidance.aspx

A new student support package was introduced for academic year 2013-14. Implementation of the revised package received praise from NUS Scotland. The new system included an annual minimum income of £7,250, through a combination of bursaries and loans, for students with a family income of less than £17,000.

Other improvements included a revised minimum student loan amount for all eligible students of £4,500. Expansion in the amount of money available to all students resulted in an increase in overall lending during the first year of operation of the new, simplified support package.

There is no specific ring fenced amount allocated to addressing debt accumulated by Scottish domiciled students.

The overall student support package offered by the Scottish Government is geared towards providing a mixture of support through free tuition, bursary and loan. Scottish domiciled students do not have to pay fees of up to £27,000 charged for tuition elsewhere in the UK. This is a real saving that does not become a debt.

Scotland continues to have the lowest level of average debt per student. The Scottish figure of £7,600 compares with £20,100 for England, £17,310 for Wales and £16,820 for Northern Ireland.

Scotland continues to have the lowest level of average debt per student. The Scottish figure of £7,600 compares with £20,100 for England, £17,310 for Wales and £16,820 for Northern Ireland.

The Scottish Government aims to contribute to maintenance of this by continuing to provide free tuition, saving students up to £27,000 compared to their peers elsewhere in the UK. In addition, interest repayment for Scottish domiciled students is kept at a minimum level.

We have no current intention of legislating on or reviewing the law in this area. I understand that the member is interested in “in perpetuity” clauses in timeshare contracts. Legislation on timeshare is a reserved matter (see Head C7 of Part II of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998). The subject matter of the Timeshare Act 1992 includes the right to cancel timeshare agreements. That subject matter remains reserved although the Timeshare Act 1992 has been repealed.

The final report of the Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce, Education Working For All! was published on 3 June 2014. The report makes a number of recommendations designed to provide earlier opportunities for young people from all backgrounds to access vocational opportunities in the senior phase of curriculum for excellence.

The report contains a chapter on advancing equalities. This chapter makes a number of specific recommendations to improve educational and labour market outcomes for groups of young people who are currently disadvantaged in the labour market.