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Good morning, cabinet secretary. In the OECD’s evidence, there were a great deal of positive endorsements of the quality of education in Scotland. I do not have the time to run through them all, but it found that we are a leading country in global competence and proficiency, that our education system produces “confident” and “articulate” children, that there are good partnerships between universities and schools, and that curriculum for excellence has expanded opportunities.

I want to focus on what I took to be its central criticism, which is that although CFE has the four capacities of producing successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors, the system does not necessarily provide a means of assessing and ensuring that each of those four capacities has been achieved. That is what I took from the report; it might not be your view.

I want to ask you three questions. Do you think that I have accurately described the central thrust of the OECD’s criticism? How, in practice, do you think it can be—[Inaudible.]—successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors? Do we have a means of demonstrating that that is seen as reliable, objective and fair?

I am happy with that answer and look forward to further details and the statement. I hope that the cabinet secretary will be able to give even more consideration to the matter because it is important that we ensure that people in colleges, universities and business—the adult world—can have full confidence in the validity of the awards that we issue to children through the processes that we employ.

The second of the three questions that I wanted to ask was about that. With the massive disruption that the lockdown caused, we have had to do things differently and examinations have made way for the use of assessment in general. How we can ensure that the outside world—the adult world, if you like—has confidence, and can place confidence, in the accuracy of the results that flow from an assessment process, which we had of necessity over lockdown in the past two years, as opposed to traditional examinations? Can you reassure the adult world about the value and confidence that we can place in those results and awards?

I imagine that, in her discussions with everybody involved, the cabinet secretary will include the business world—the chambers of commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, the Institute of Directors and so on—to ensure that business is confident about the way ahead. It is important to get that buy-in, as it shows that we have an excellent system that people can put their confidence in.

The last of my three questions is slightly different and is perhaps a bit left field, cabinet secretary, but please do not look too worried. At the beginning of the session, you mentioned the pledge—which was made, I believe, by the Deputy First Minister earlier this year—to give every child a laptop or tablet. I welcome that; even though I suspect that many children already have such devices, I think it important that we reach out to all, particularly those who are unable to afford them.

That said, laptops and tablets are simply tools—they do not achieve anything by themselves. Does the cabinet secretary agree that it would be extremely useful for children to acquire the skill of touch typing using the QWERTY keyboard on a laptop or tablet? There are many things that I completely failed to learn in my life, such as a foreign language—that is my fault—but I had an opportunity through a friend of my mother’s to learn how to touch type. Frankly, it is the most useful skill that I have ever learned. Whenever I see children tapping away at a mobile phone with two fingers, I think, “This is not great,” because it just does not equip them for the many walks of life where the ability to type effectively and quickly is an extraordinary benefit, not just in our world but in almost every area where communication through the written word is appropriate.

I have asked my question at some length to give the cabinet secretary time to compose her answer. To be serious, though—and maybe this is just me—I think that it is an extremely useful skill, and I wonder whether the tool of a tablet or iPad can be made really useful by enabling children to learn how to touch type and give them a skill that might well transform what they can get out of their employment and their life in general.

Yes, thank you, convener. No country in the world suffering from the global pandemic had a syllabus ready and waiting to instruct us on how to proceed when schools were disrupted and shut down. Hindsight is a marvellous thing, is it not?

I would like to look forward, not back. I have two questions, the first of which arises from the OECD report. I am sure that Fiona Robertson and her colleagues will have read the evidence. I was struck by the very positive comments made by, for example, Beatriz Pont, who said that

“Scotland was among the leading countries in global competency proficiency”

and that

“in terms of equity, Scotland is above average across OECD countries.”

She went on to say that the OECD saw curriculum for excellence, which I want to question Fiona Robertson about, as being

“a pioneer among education systems internationally.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 8 September 2021; c 11-12.]

There were lots of positives in the report.

However, for me, the takeaway from the OECD—the central conceptual thrust of its criticism—was that the four capacities of successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors needed to be better worked on and assessed in the overall system. In other words, it is not clear at the moment how we assess whether individual children, pupils or learners have or have not attained those capacities.

That seemed to me to be the central tenet of the criticism. If that is correct, how do we address that in the future? What needs to be done to take Scotland forward, if you like, and ensure that we can drive the CFE forward in a way that allows us to say with confidence, “Yes, our children are successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors”?

You have given us some very good examples. I notice that the OECD witnesses told the committee:

“Scotland is viewed internationally as an example of high performance. When we compare the data with that from other countries, we see that Scotland is above average on a number of indicators, especially the OECD’s new indicator on global competencies.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 8 September 2021; c 30.]

It is easy to forget all the positives in the OECD report.

I would like to ask one more question, which is of a more practical nature. It arose from the comments that Fiona Robertson made earlier about the importance of the need to help children to prepare for examinations next spring against the background of the past 18 months or couple of years, when they have not been used to examinations.

It is a long time since I sat my last examination at school—it was five decades ago, I think, which is such a long time ago that dinosaurs were prowling around outside the classroom cave—so my experience might be a little bit dated. However, I guess that the essentials of exams, from a child’s point of view, do not really change: there is work to do to prepare for the exam and there is inducement to work and prepare, and there is also anxiety and a fear factor, which involves the unknown and the consequences of what the child does in the exam. All those elements are constants, irrespective of the passage of time.

How, in practice, can we best equip and prepare our learners—that is the word that we use these days—for examinations, given that they have not been used to doing examinations recently?

I want to make a particular suggestion that might or might not be of use. Is the use of practice specimen papers, which give children the chance to rehearse and try out the process of an examination before sitting the real thing, a structured part of the system these days? It could be helpful, because it would mean that children would not be going in cold to an experience with which they are completely unfamiliar. To me—based on my long-forgotten examination preparation—the fundamental part of preparing yourself for such an experience is actually trying it out in peacetime before the real thing.

I will pass to other colleagues, as I appreciate that time is short. I thank both witnesses for their full answers.

I was heartened by both witnesses’ statements at the outset about the genuine co-operation between all players involved and their positive comments today. That gels with what we heard from young people from Inverness in the session last week who gave positive reports about their experiences in lockdown despite all the difficulties, some of which we have heard about this morning.

Looking to the use of alternative certification alongside examinations in the future, how do you believe we can provide assurance to colleges, universities and employers that, in a system of assessment that does not involve objective examination and in which the testing is done by independent third parties, the qualifications have been earned? How can we avoid any criticism that it is unfair to expect teachers to do anything other than have an optimistic and favourable response to the children who, after all, they have taught, and that, in a sense, they are marking their own jotters? That is not a criticism of the great work that teachers do, but it is a fundamental question. I feel that we have been skirting around it a wee bit because, quite rightly, we have been looking at the difficulties of Covid.

When I was at school—although, as it was such a long time ago, it is probably no longer relevant—examinations were the be-all and end-all. There was no other assessment of any sort. I think that that is the wrong approach, but, if we are to move away from examinations, I would like to hear from our experts how we can demonstrate the bona fides and the robustness of an assessment procedure. How can we get it right for Scotland?

Mr Flanagan said that, although the Scottish Government did not accept the approach to the alternative certification model that the EIS recommended, the outcome was nonetheless satisfactory. I welcome that as a positive comment. With that in mind, I note that the national 5, higher and advanced higher examinations will be held in spring 2022 if the public health advice allows it. The decision will be informed by the public health advice, and course content will be reduced compared with a normal year, with further contingencies if there are further difficulties because of disruption due to Covid.

Mr Flanagan, are you broadly happy with the approach that has been set out, which I have described very briefly? Do you have any particular views and suggestions on how this should operate in 2022?

I understand the line of argument that you are pursuing and which you pursued last year. It did not have a successful outcome, but you had the good grace to acknowledge that there was a good outcome in terms of the overall results and the highers achieved. My understanding is that the Scottish Government placed immense trust in teachers and that it values their work enormously.

Are you still in discussions with the Scottish Government about your suggested tweak or amendment to its approach to S4? Is that an on-going matter of discussion between you and the Scottish Government?

Good morning to both witnesses. Thank you for coming along. I want to pursue the issue that Mr Greer raised, which you have both already covered—namely data and the absence of sufficient data to enable us to determine outcomes and success in three of the four competencies under CFE.

I noticed that you say—I was going to quote from your report, but you have already confirmed it today—that some data is missing: it is absent. I fully accept that it is for Scotland to respond to that, but perhaps you can give us a little more help with identifying what type of data you think that we should be getting. From whom should we get it, and how are other countries dealing with reportage on data to assess how their children are responding in respect of key competencies?