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We must ensure that that area is working not just well but up to the standard that people would expect. That is why, as part of the programme for government, we have undertaken to implement an equality and human rights mainstreaming strategy, which will ensure that that is being looked at as thoroughly as the committee would expect. I am sure that lessons can be learned from what has happened in the SQA, and that issues with historical policies and practices can be dealt with expeditiously if they are found.

Good morning, and thank you very much, convener. It is a pleasure to be able to appear in front of the committee to discuss my priorities for education in the new session. I am deeply honoured to be serving as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, and I am delighted to return to the portfolio after having been a junior minister previously.

Although the latest data shows that Covid cases have, thankfully, been coming down, we remain in the midst of a pandemic, of course, and I do not underestimate how challenging that continues to be for everyone. I remain acutely aware of the impact that it is having on the lives of our young people and on the education and skills sector as a whole.

From the outset, we have been working to protect children and young people from the worst impacts of Covid-19 and to support them to recover, where they have been affected. We know that some learners will have suffered adverse consequences to their health and wellbeing or their attainment. We will continue to address those impacts, and I am determined that every child and young person in Scotland will have the opportunity to fulfil their potential as they progress through the education system and on to positive destinations.

Yesterday, the Scottish Government published “Education Recovery: Key Actions and Next Steps”, which was developed with input from our partners, including young people. It outlines our on-going response to the impacts of the pandemic and sets out some of the key next steps that we will take to address them.

The document also draws on advice from our international council of education advisers. Among other things, it has highlighted that the pandemic reaffirms equity as the defining issue of our time. That is why we remain committed to closing the poverty-related attainment gap for children of all ages, which is a core part of our wider national mission to eradicate child poverty.

Although we continue to make good progress on that long-term ambition, I recognise that there is more to do and that the needs of individual learners should be central to our reforms. That is why we will provide £1 billion over this session of Parliament to close the poverty-related attainment gap and support education recovery, including a refresh of the Scottish attainment challenge programme from 2022-23. That will empower schools, support education recovery plans, and help to improve outcomes for children and young people. This autumn, I will set out to Parliament how we will refresh the attainment challenge and how that will support faster and more consistent progress for learners across the country.

It has, arguably, never been more important to ensure that our education system delivers for Scotland’s children. That is why I have committed to a number of important reforms in this session. In June, I confirmed that the Scottish Qualifications Authority will be replaced and that I am minded to create a single specialist agency for curriculum and assessment. Reform of the education system aims to reduce variation in the outcomes achieved by learners and to ensure the best possible quality of support and challenge for our school environment.

A period of change is coming, but changes will be made in partnership in order to improve, achieve more and deliver for all Scotland’s learners. Although there is work to be done, I am proud of what has been accomplished this year, despite all the challenges.

For example, since 1 August, we have delivered our flagship commitment to offer 1,140 funded hours of early learning and childcare to all eligible two, three and four-year-olds. We have ambitious plans in this session to expand early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds, starting with children from low-income households. We will also deliver on our commitment to build a system of wraparound childcare before and after school all year round.

The changes that we are bringing in for young people will pay dividends over their lifetime and help to improve outcomes for their families.

I thank the committee once again for the opportunity to set out the current situation in the sector. I look forward to working with the committee on those issues in future years.

We can learn a lot from what has happened in the most difficult of circumstances. As I said in my opening remarks, an issue that has been very clear to all of us, and which was made clear by the Government equity audit, is that the pandemic has affected people—children and young people in particular—in different ways. We are keen to ensure that we move further and faster to deal with overall attainment.

I am determined that the refreshed Scottish attainment challenge funding will deal with a number of issues, one of which will be the variation in outcomes for children and young people across Scotland. Variation in the way that things are done is a good thing, because we should absolutely not have a one-size-fits-all education policy. However, everyone who has an interest in the achievements and attainments of our children and young people should be concerned about a variation in outcomes across the country. We will look at that to see what can be done to speed up the efforts that are being made.

As I said in my opening remarks, we are seeing progress on the poverty-related attainment gap. That has been shown clearly by Audit Scotland and it has been remarked on by headteachers, but Audit Scotland and the education sector in general quite rightly want us to do more and to do it quickly. We are keen to do that. Part of that will be through the work of Education Scotland.

I will give one example of what we have to do from the experience of children and young people during the pandemic. We must look at digital devices. We know that local authorities have done a great deal of work to supply digital devices during the pandemic and, of course, money went into that through Scottish Government recovery investment, but we need to do more on that. That is why we have made a commitment that every young person will have a digital device by the end of the session. We must ensure that children, regardless of where they live, have that support and connectivity and that their schools have connectivity to enable teachers to use digital devices in new ways.

There is a great deal that we can learn. One aspect that I would take from a difficult couple of years is how the education sector as a whole has worked well collaboratively. That has been commented on favourably in recent reports, and I would like that to continue.

I fully appreciate that, as politicians, we will disagree on different education matters—indeed, the education sector has a variety of views on the way forward on different matters—but I would very much like to continue the way that local and national Government, unions, young people, parents and others have managed to come together and work collaboratively in the most difficult of circumstances. If we work in that way, we will have a much better chance of achieving the success that we all want for children and young people.

That was highlighted in the report, and we, as a Government, take it seriously. We have a commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers by one and a half hours per week. That is going through due process with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, and I hope that it will be able to make a big difference.

I point back to a lesson that we have learned but which did not, I think, come as a surprise to any of us who have an interest in education: the professionalism of teachers and the hard work that they undertook to support our children and young people in the most difficult of times. We need to support our teachers to have the time to be able to support our young people. One of the ways that we can do that is through reducing contact time. We will move forward with that commitment to support our teachers further on that.

First, I note that the OECD report was very welcome and timely. We have accepted in full all the recommendations of the review, and I will make further announcements with more detail of how we will take forward their implementation in due course.

One of the aspects that came through loud and clear in the report was that there was wide support for curriculum for excellence. For example, it states that:

“Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence continues to be a bold and widely supported initiative, and its design offers the flexibility needed to improve student learning further”.

The foundations that we have are correct. Professor Stobart said in his report that it is

“an inspiring example equated with good curriculum practice”,

so we have good foundations to build on.

Curriculum for excellence has been in place for some time now, so it is quite right that we look at it. The OECD has challenged the Government to see what more can be done to ensure that it is fit for purpose. I will say more in due course about how we ensure that it is right for the challenges ahead. It is timely for us to do that, given that it has been in place for more than a decade. It is not surprising that changes need to be made.

Its advice, considering the four harms approach, was that given the fact that one of our main concerns was to reduce the disruption to children’s education through prolonged periods of being off school—

We will have a new agency; the SQA will be replaced. When that happens, we will not have the SQA; we will have a different body. It is important that what that will look like is being left to Ken Muir’s independent review. At this point, the exact make-up of the agency is for Mr Muir to consider and give recommendations on. The functions that he is looking at are in many ways already being carried out by different parts of Government—for example, he is considering what functions should go to the replacement of the SQA and where inspections should sit. We are not necessarily inventing new functions as part of that process.

It is an area of education on which I am keen to attempt to build consensus as far as possible. The refreshed and reformed Scottish education council is quite a large body, but it brings together representatives from local government, some of the trade unions and, importantly, more children and young people and more representatives of children and young people’s rights to have that type of discussion.

I said that I am happy to provide further detail about digital training, but I can go into that more. I gave examples of lower-pay jobs, although I stress that they are not lower-skill jobs. Digital training is key, which is why we had the Logan review to look at that particular issue. I have spoken to Mark Logan about the issue and about education. When we discussed that, we agreed that my officials would work with him to see what more can be done in the education sector.

I take your point. I have no issue with your assessment of the challenge of ensuring that we have the right skills in the teaching profession to be able to provide the courses that will allow people to go on to university. That is just one of the aspects in the Logan review. He and I have discussed what we need to do about that. I absolutely agree that more needs to done on that, and we are keen to work with him to see what more can be done collaboratively and what we need to change.

Part of the challenge is attracting to the teaching profession people who might have other employment opportunities if they have the type of computing background that we are looking for. They might not see teaching as the attractive option. That is one area among many that we are looking at.

I have not spoken to the commissioner, but I have absolutely heard what he had to say about that. Most of my discussions have been with Liam Fowley, who is on the Covid-19 education recovery group, and who has made clear the discussions and concerns about the NQ21—now the NQ22—group. I have listened carefully to what the commissioner has said about being careful—he probably put it more strongly than that—about the wording that that the Government uses. We need to be careful that, when we talk about co-design, that genuinely means co-design. I am keen for the Government to do a lot more in that area, which is why I am setting up the children and young people’s education council. It will have parity with the education council, which has been refreshed, and it will meet soon, so that children and young people have a voice.

Given my experience in my previous brief, in social security, I am acutely conscious that having people at the table does not mean that they feel empowered to have their voice heard or that having their voice heard is facilitated at that point. Regardless of where we are in Government, that is a lesson that we absolutely need to learn and take cognisance of.

I think that I have listened to the criticisms, although I am happy to be told otherwise by the commissioner if we need to do more on that. Listening does not mean that we will always agree with a children and young people’s representative on a panel. For example, I had a fundamental disagreement with some points that were put forward about a no-detriment policy in relation to the appeals process for 2021. However, the key point is whether every young person in the process felt that they had the right opportunity to have their say and be listened to, whether or not I agreed with them. They clearly did not feel that way, and I have taken that exceptionally seriously. I hope that I have demonstrated that we have taken action on that since then.