Official Report 1104KB pdf
Education and Skills
The next item of business is portfolio question time.
Question 1 has been withdrawn.
Learning Hours
To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update regarding its consideration of whether to legislate to prescribe the number of learning hours. (S6O-04082)
The Scottish Government is continuing to work with local government and its representatives, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, on how we can best protect the learning hours that pupils in Scottish schools receive, including through budget discussions in recent weeks. The budget, which was published yesterday by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, sets out a funding package that, we believe, will enable all councils to maintain learning hours at current levels, and we very much hope that COSLA leaders will endorse that package when they meet tomorrow.
Next week, Falkirk Council will consider a report that asks for a decision on proposals to cut learning hours in primary and secondary schools from the start of the next academic session. The proposals, which are intended to address the budget gap, are estimated to save about £6 million annually by cutting 91 teaching posts over the next four years. With the enhanced funding settlement for local authorities, as detailed in yesterday’s budget, what further assurances can the minister provide that the Government is providing every support to Falkirk Council in order to avoid it having to approve those cuts?
The local government settlement for 2025-26 delivers more than £15 billion, which is an increase on last year’s settlement. That includes an additional £289 million to support local priorities and full discretion on council tax rate setting. Falkirk Council’s settlement will be published on 12 December, and I am confident that the council will be able to revisit those decisions off the back of a very strong local government settlement.
College Course Provision (Energy Transition)
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that college courses are being tailored to meet the needs of industries involved in energy efficiency, carbon reduction and the just transition. (S6O-04083)
Our colleges have an important role to play in developing the multiskilled workforce that will drive the just transition to net zero. Colleges are directly involved in the regions and communities that they serve, and our expectation is that they will work closely with employers to determine the shape of their curriculum in that area and others.
The Scottish Government actively supports such work. For instance, through the just transition fund, we have allocated £4.5 million over five years for the energy transition skills hub at North East Scotland College, which aims to support 1,000 people into energy transition roles.
I welcome the work that is going on at NESCol, but some businesses continue to tell me that college courses need to change to meet the needs of today’s ever-changing workplaces. How will the Government bring dynamism and flexibility into further education courses to meet the needs of companies?
I hear the same things as Kevin Stewart does, as he articulated. Colleges are responsible for determining their own operational decisions, including on course provision. We trust them to engage closely with employers and local partners to understand the skills needs and to routinely and continuously plan and adjust their core curriculum to meet the emerging needs of the economy. The post-school education and skills reform programme aims to make further improvements.
The Scottish Funding Council sets out expectations of colleges in return for the funding that they receive through outcomes, taking into consideration students, vocations, employers’ needs, the Scottish Government’s ambition and targets, and other stakeholder interests. For instance, NESCol co-developed a pre-apprenticeship welding course with direct industry input from the Energy Skills Partnership and Ocean Winds, in line with the needs of the offshore wind sector.
Good practice is out there, but we need that to be delivered more widely.
We have a supplementary question from Pam Duncan-Glancy, who joins us remotely.
The ability of colleges to deliver is crucial if they are to meet the needs of the energy industry, but yesterday’s budget included a real-terms cut for colleges. Colleges Scotland has said that the budget “undermines” colleges’ ability to deliver and that
“leaving colleges millions of pounds short is unacceptable”.
With regard to colleges, Audit Scotland has warned the Government of
“a risk to their ability to continue in their current form”
and has said that addressing colleges’ funding challenges
“cannot be avoided or postponed”.
Which is it? Is the minister postponing help for colleges or avoiding helping them altogether?
Colleges received a 1.8 per cent uplift in funding from the budget yesterday. Of course, if Labour or any other party wants the funding to be increased, it can engage in the budget negotiations process. I seem to remember Pam Duncan-Glancy also expressing the view yesterday that student support should be maintained at a level beyond demand, so there have already been two asks from her when the ink is barely dry on the budget. I should remind Labour that, if it wants to spend more in one or two areas, there will need to be cuts elsewhere in the budget.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without reminding Labour that a fresh and additional pressure on colleges will be the changes to employer national insurance contributions, which it is currently unwilling to fully mitigate.
Careers Advice (Future Roles and Skills)
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that students are supported throughout their educational journey with career advice that aligns with the future economic need for specific roles and skills. (S6O-04084)
Career support is informed by skills and labour market information, with businesses and employers providing intelligence on opportunities and skills needs. However, we recognise that we need to do a lot more, and ministers have set out their intentions to improve the current offer, including by working with the career services collaborative to ensure that students are more aware of the wide range of economic opportunities in Scotland, the skills that are required and the pathways that are available to achieve their goals.
Alongside that, we have committed to taking responsibility for national skills planning and to strengthening regional approaches by better aligning them with the career support system.
The careers advice that is given in schools does not reflect future opportunities in Scotland’s green economy, in the blue economy, in the rural economy and—specifically in my area—in engineering. Ayrshire College provides fantastic engineering apprenticeships and has even opened its own aeronautical engineering apprenticeship facility at Prestwick airport.
We have the demand for and the capability to deliver apprenticeships. What will the Scottish Government do to ensure that those opportunities are marketed in schools and that there is enough investment in our colleges to meet the demand for those highly paid, highly skilled and long-term jobs?
I suspect that this will worry Brian Whittle, but I genuinely agree with what he has said. We are actively working on an upgraded role for the career services collaborative, whose membership includes not just Skills Development Scotland and Developing the Young Workforce but colleges, universities and local authorities. Good work is being done in that space, but we need to pull all of it together to ensure that we have a fully cohesive and coherent careers offering for people of all ages.
I will pick up on Brian Whittle’s specific point. Just this morning, I held an employers round-table meeting, where I spoke to a representative of the aerospace sector from Ayrshire. He made the same points as Brian Whittle has made about access to apprenticeships, but he recognised that it is not just about new recruits, because it is difficult to get the numbers that people are looking for. In all of this, we need to do a lot more to upskill and reskill the existing workforce.
I absolutely get the points that Brian Whittle has made. I give him the commitment that we are alive to all those issues and are working towards improving the situation.
The minister recognises the importance of the alignment of skills advice with the skills gaps that are found in some sectors, and the need to encourage young people into some of those professional groupings. I am aware that Skills Development Scotland recently completed a survey of young people on their career aspirations. Does the minister feel that the findings from that survey align with the approach that Skills Development Scotland has taken in working with young people to give them careers advice? If not, what action could be taken to ensure that that is the case?
I read the survey with interest and thought that there was some fascinating information in it about the aspirations of young people. As I said earlier, we aspire to improve the offering, and this is one area in which we need to better articulate to young people all the opportunities that are available to them, based on their interests, skills and performance in school. There is more that we can do, but I thought that the survey was a useful piece of work to inform our thinking.
To be frank with the member, one of the things that has informed my planning for improvements in this area has been the conversations that I have had directly with young people about their expectations and what they are looking for out of the system. That is why we are looking to make some of the changes.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Assessments (Delays)
To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the provision of support for children with additional support needs, what assessment it has made of any impact of the reported delays to ADHD assessments for children on their education. (S6O-04085)
The Scottish Government is aware that there has been a significant increase in children and families seeking a diagnosis and requiring support for their neurodivergence, which is creating challenges for a range of services. However, we are clear that support should be put in place to meet a child’s requirements when they need it, rather than requiring support to be dependent on a formal diagnosis. That includes where additional support is needed for learning.
Local authorities have duties under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 to identify, provide for and review the additional needs of their pupils. Under the act, an additional support need can arise for any reason, and a diagnosis of ADHD is not required before support is put in place.
I note in the budget the reference to additional ASN teachers, which I welcome, and I acknowledge what the minister said in her answer with regard to ADHD. However, given the admitted delays for children, would she consider, with her health colleague, establishing a list of qualified private ADHD assessors whose diagnosis might be accepted by national health service practitioners, in order to facilitate shared care agreements across Scotland and assist in children’s educational provision? ADHD is a wide spectrum and the needs of each child will be different.
We want all children to get the support that they need when they need it. I would be happy to speak to Ms Grahame about that proposal. Obviously, that would have to be discussed with my health colleagues as well, but I am absolutely happy to listen to that proposal further.
I also note the inclusion of the £29 million ASN plan in yesterday’s draft budget. However, the scale of the challenge in relation to additional support needs such as ADHD is serious, with more than 37,000 children in Scotland having the condition—and that number is growing rapidly.
Children with ADHD are more likely to drop out of school and to have lower scores in reading and maths. It is, therefore, deeply concerning that NHS Tayside currently has a waiting time for children’s referral to its neurodevelopmental service of 154 weeks—that is just short of three years
I note that the minister said that there should not be a delay in support, but there is a delay in diagnosis. That means that children are going without support and pressure is being put on our teachers. How will the £29 million fund in the budget help those students now, given that recruiting and training teachers will take years?
It is concerning to hear what Roz McCall has said about the waiting times in that specific case. As I said in my previous answer, we want children to receive the support that they need when they need it.
Spending by authorities on additional support for learning has reached a record high, and our draft budget provides local government with an additional £41 million to support extra teachers and support staff, as well as that additional £29 million for additional support for learning services. I therefore encourage Roz McCall and her party to vote for the budget, if she wants to see further increases in support services for children with additional support needs.
Apprenticeships (Awareness)
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to raise awareness of apprenticeship opportunities and promote them as an attractive career path for young people. (S6O-04086)
Skills Development Scotland provides an all-age careers service in every local authority area, with an SDS careers adviser in each school in Scotland to highlight the available careers options, including apprenticeships. SDS also works with partners and employers to highlight the importance of apprenticeships, particularly through Scottish apprenticeship week. We continue to work closely with SDS to support the promotion of apprenticeships throughout Scotland at all times.
As Mr Mason knows, we are actively progressing measures to build on the foundations that we already have in place, thanks to the endeavours of SDS.
It concerns me that there are still a lot of gender stereotypes around apprenticeships. Does he think that schools can tackle that, or is it down to families and peer groups?
Mr Mason makes a very fair point, and there is not an easy answer. One helpful contribution has been the work of the gender commission and the Scottish apprenticeship advisory board. They produced a piece of work addressing all elements of gender prejudice and issues around certain careers right across the spectrum of the post-16 landscape, and I have committed to weaving that work into the wider reform agenda. If Mr Mason has the answer, I would love to hear it, as this is a long-standing problem. He is right about schools, because some of the problems start in schools, where youngsters are told, “That is a boys’ career” or “That is a girls’ career” when it is nothing of the sort. We require, collectively, to try to improve the situation, ensuring that all careers are open to all in our society, with no sort of prejudice against certain careers options depending on gender.
I have received requests for supplementary questions from four members, and I intend to take all four.
How is the Scottish Government working with the higher education sector on the development of graduate apprenticeships, which promote careers in the sectors that are most important for the Scottish economy?
We have established a graduate apprenticeship enhancement group, chaired by Professor Steve Decent, principal and vice-chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University. The group has four workstreams, and a broad range of stakeholders is revisiting the purpose and objective of GAs. That will help to drive future policy, ensuring that the GA strategic direction is in line with wider skills reform and economic priorities.
Graduate apprenticeships have considerable potential for expansion to address skills shortages and to improve workforce retention. Numbers are increasing, but I think that we can increase them further and move the GA offering into other disciplines. I will be guided in that by the export group.
What proposed reforms will the Government seek to bring forward to support employers to develop part-time apprenticeship opportunities, especially given last year’s budget, in which the Scottish Government removed the flexible workforce development fund, which provided £7 million for employers to develop such pathways?
I will commit to meet Miles Briggs to explore that further. I must confess that that is not an issue that I had considered, but I am happy to explore it with him as I think that it might have some merit.
Traditional skills such as stonemasonry are of vital importance across the south of Scotland. There are excellent examples of facilitators, such as the Ridge, a Scottish charitable incorporated organisation in Dunbar, East Lothian. Will the minister confirm that support for traditional apprenticeships, which frequently come at greater expense than other apprenticeships, will be both supported and championed by the Government?
I agree with Martin Whitfield on the important point that he makes. We tend to talk a lot about emerging job opportunities and future career opportunities for young people. There will always be a demand for traditional skills, and stonemasonry is a case in point. In fact, one might argue that stonemasonry sits in the green skills agenda, because we will need such skills to maintain older buildings. I wish to assure Martin Whitfield that we are absolutely committed to sustaining access to such types of courses and apprenticeships. They may develop or morph into a different offering in future, but that is something that we are absolutely alive to.
Not everyone at school wants to pursue an academic route, and many would thrive in vocational or technical education. Despite discussing that issue for decades, however, we have never really cracked it. I believe that the way that we measure success in schools is part of the reason for that, and I think that we should change the Insight programme. Can the minister set out what he is planning to do, so that we can finally crack the issue and get vocational education to the level that it deserves to be at?
That is a timely question. As Mr Rennie knows, I am committed to reviewing the foundation apprenticeship offering in schools across the whole of Scotland, as it is quite variable. We now intend to consider that alongside the vocational courses that are being offered in some schools, so that we have a whole, complete picture and can take account of it. We can hopefully come up with a way forward that really delivers for young people for whom that is the best career path to move into. We are actively pursuing that at the moment.
School Curriculum (Practical Science)
To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to ensure that pupils have access to practical science activities as part of the curriculum. (S6O-04087)
Practical science is part of the sciences curriculum. Work to improve the curriculum as part of the curriculum improvement cycle is now under way, led by Education Scotland. This financial year alone, we have invested more than £100,000 in the raising aspirations in science education programme, which is empowering primary school practitioners with the confidence and skills required to deliver engaging science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning. We have also provided more than £900,000 to SSERC, an organisation that delivers professional learning and training for STEM teachers and school technicians. That includes practical advice and guidance on reducing the costs of delivering practical science activities.
Science technicians are a key part of science departments in schools, supporting teachers with their work and practical lessons. However, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s science teaching survey in 2024 noted that 39 per cent of respondents from mainstream and specialist schools stated that they are understaffed for science technicians. Can the minister advise how the Scottish Government is working to address the shortage of science technicians?
The Scottish Government absolutely recognises the important role that school technicians can play in supporting science teachers in the delivery of engaging practical learning opportunities. Local authorities are responsible for the recruitment and deployment of their staff, including teachers and technicians, and we will continue to support them to maximise the number of jobs that are available in certain areas and in certain subjects. Nationally, the Scottish Government supports SSERC, as I mentioned in my previous response, which offers training for school technicians. It reached more than 320 science technicians and delivered more than 4,500 combined hours of professional learning last year.
University of Dundee (Discussions)
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the University of Dundee, in light of recent reports regarding its financial situation, senior management resignations and its failure to recruit enough Scottish students. (S6O-04088)
The University of Dundee wrote to me on 13 November to outline the current financial challenges that it is facing and, in broad terms, to outline the steps that are being taken to address that. As autonomous institutions, universities have a key role in mitigating financial pressures and external risks. However, both the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council will continue to support individual universities, such as the University of Dundee, in developing their own strategies to minimise any negative impacts on short, medium and long-term financial sustainability. The need to ensure that universities are on a sustainable trajectory is at the heart of our considerations to reform the post-school education system, so that the very significant investment that we are making delivers the best outcomes for learners, the economy and society.
The University of Dundee should not be in financial crisis. It generated a significant surplus in recent years and staff costs have fallen by 25 per cent since 2021. However, staff are now facing redundancies and the university has failed to fill its SFC-funded places for Scottish students. Given the public money that is rightly spent on higher education in Scotland, will the minister undertake to investigate why jobs are threatened, why recruitment of Scottish students is failing and why restructuring is planned, and whether all of that, in the words of the students association, is “papering over management failures”?
I hope that the member will recognise that it is not for ministers to become directly involved in operational issues in individual institutions. It is the role of the SFC to engage in that regard. I understand, however, that the announcements to staff at the University of Dundee came out of the blue and have caused considerable upset. In my response to the university’s letter, I outlined my expectation that, at the very least, every effort was made to ensure that any redundancies were voluntary in nature. I hope that Maggie Chapman will welcome the uplift in university funding that was announced in yesterday’s budget, and that she will share my hope that that will help to alleviate the situation at the University of Dundee.
That concludes portfolio questions on education and skills. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business, to allow front bench teams to change positions, should they wish to do so.
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Point of Order