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It was interesting to hear you dismiss the percentage of pupils who leave school early. Given that they are often the individuals who have been most let down by the school system, do you not think that they have the right to sit for an externally assessed qualification before the education system gives up on them?

I just think that it is about recognising that successful learners are the people who go on to be active contributors and to make important decisions in our society. If we were to stop helping people to gain the qualifications that they need to break through the barriers that exist, that would be sad. That is what has been so powerful about Scottish education across the best part of a century.

The difference is about external assessment and the validity that comes from that. I will leave it there. I do not want to dominate the discussion.

I would argue that a change to the system does not really change the prospects for those young people.

Why did the OECD approach you to write the review? My concern is that it asked you to conduct the review because it already knew your long-held and well-known views on the diminishing importance and validity of examinations, which are well explored in your work. Does that not create a risk of groupthink, whereby outside experts come in and tell us that curriculum for excellence is a world-leading, groundbreaking move, despite the fact that people living and learning in Scotland continue to see our once-world-leading education system being dismantled and slipping backwards?

You talk about culture, but would it not be better to work with Scottish culture to recognise the importance of Scottish educational traditions and seek to improve the examination offer, rather than going for more radical reform that might not command the trust and confidence of parents, teachers, young people and employers?

I am mindful that, during the evidence-taking session with the OECD, I was accused of being rude in my questioning. I hope, therefore, that Professor Stobart will see that I am not being rude—I asked the OECD similarly robust questions.

Leading Scottish educationalist Professor Lindsay Paterson has stated that your review is “awful”,

“ignorant of Scottish educational history”

and

“ignorant of current Scottish practice, failing to see that Highers remain the main entry requirement for university, not Advanced Highers.”

He said:

“It is not based on any systematic comparison with non-UK countries, but rather with an arbitrarily chosen group of places that seem to have been selected to make the case against exams.”

Furthermore, he notes that you fail to

“discuss the unfairness of non-exam assessment, for example the unavoidable advantage enjoyed by children from affluent homes with well-educated parents.”

How do you respond to those concerns?

What about grade inflation, which has been seen across the UK over the past two years? The argument made by some—I tend to believe it, based on my constituency experience—is that it ends up disadvantaging those who face the greatest challenges. You talk about the suite of considerations for entry to university, but these are the very young people who cannot access good-quality work experience, who do not have the same opportunities to take part in extracurricular activities and who do not have access to coaching for university entry exams. Why is grade inflation a good thing for them?

That is reassuring. The sector will be worried about the timing and the vulnerability of a number of settings, but I accept that you work to the timescale that you have.

You recognise that there is a tension between a policy objective to give headteachers autonomy and a group of headteachers not being enabled to take decisions in relation to their pupils. There is a tension between the policy objective of equity funding and, because of where the threshold is set, that opportunity not being available in all schools.

I have a question on the 1,140 hours workforce. You have covered the matter extensively previously, but I continue to hear about concerns from the private, voluntary and independent sector that it is not able to recruit early learning and childcare workers and that people who work in that sector are often displaced into the local authority sector. Is that still a risk to the success of the policy?

That is helpful. I wonder whether you have reflected on a point that is linked to the point that Mr Ewing made. There is a small group of predominantly smaller rural schools that tend to end up being ineligible for any of those funds and, anecdotally, headteachers in those schools say—I think that most reasonable people would accept that this is the case—that there is significant poverty, deprivation and exclusion from opportunities in rural areas. The headteachers of those schools do not have the opportunity to ensure the provision of educational equity for their pupils. Is that something that you would look at when considering the success of a policy?