Education First

Speech delivered on Thu 7th Sep 2006

The Deputy Minister for Education and Young People (Robert Brown):

This excellent debate very much follows the vision that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister set out in yesterday's debate on the future of Scotland and has been marked by some good and relevant speeches. One of the best features of the Parliament is the way in which debates in the chamber can shape issues, eliminate the trivial and the partisan and produce an overall parliamentary view.

Let me be crystal clear: the life chances of young people are at the core of the Scottish Government's—and the Parliament's—vision for our country's future. As some members have pointed out, the serious purpose of education and the value of the education system form part of our country's psyche. Our country's inventions and intellectual questioning have created much of the modern world. We have a clear vision of the direction of Scottish education, of our ambitions and of the further improvements that we can make to meet the major challenges that we face and that have also formed the subject of this debate.

This debate has provided a timely opportunity to acknowledge our strengths; to consider how far we have come since the regime of our predecessors and the dark days of the teachers' dispute, underinvestment in school infrastructure, declining teacher numbers and poor morale among teachers, parents and children; and to focus on the real successes that have been achieved and of which this Parliament can be proud.

We now have record numbers of new teachers and are well on the way to achieving our target of 53,000 new teachers by next year. Our children and young people will benefit from those vital additional resources. Those of us who travel around the country know that our schools are bursting with dynamic young teachers and able head teachers and leaders who have been brought forward and nurtured by this Scottish Government. They are reinvigorating our schools and taking them to new heights; and are providing our young people with the excitement and motivation that Nicol Stephen mentioned in yesterday's debate.

Peter Peacock has already outlined our programme's wide ranging nature. I do not want to go over all that again, except to point out that, after all the debate, no one has seriously challenged any part of the agenda or its direction. In her opening speech for the Opposition, Fiona Hyslop was desperate to find something to moan about. For example, she claimed that there has been no progress in reducing class sizes, and even made the bizarre suggestion that the new teachers that she accepts have been recruited have somehow vanished from the system.

The reality is very different. As Iain Smith rightly pointed out, class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios have declined steadily since 1999. Moreover, there are 2,700 post-probationer teachers from this year's teacher induction scheme—the high quality of which, I might add, has been internationally recognised—and in 2006-07 local authorities will receive an additional £14.5 million investment to employ them. That funding is aligned with the needs and numbers of the new teachers who are coming through.

Fiona Hyslop: I note the minister's concern that some councils might use the money for recruiting new teachers to fund pensions. Will the minister set out the Executive's concerns in that respect? How will we ensure that the Parliament can account for where taxpayers' money is going if it is not being used to recruit teachers?

Robert Brown: I accept Fiona Hyslop's point. In this policy area, as in many others, there is a tension between the need to meet high-level Executive objectives—and I stress that we are determined to meet this particular high-level objective—and the discretion of local authorities to dispose of their funding. Communication with local authorities at ministerial and civil service level is continuing, and the release of the last tranche of the money has been linked to undertakings from local authorities to deliver this objective. I am reasonably confident that, across the board, we will achieve the number of new teachers by the target date. However, that is not to say that individual issues will not arise in certain areas; after all, within the overall prospectus, councils need to tackle various local issues such as recruitment difficulties.

On discipline, which Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, Andrew Welsh and other members highlighted, I am sure that no one in the chamber disagrees with the point that violence in—and indeed, out of—schools cannot be tolerated. As a result, we have made it very clear that head teachers have full discretion over exclusions, where they prove to be necessary. However, in his exchange with Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, Scott Barrie hit the nail on the head when he said that we cannot stop at such measures. Instead, we must introduce strategies that not only deal with the immediate issue—after all, we cannot have children who have been excluded running about the streets—but attempt to remotivate these children to ensure that they can have a career and a future and that society does not have to suffer from the problems that they might cause.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Is the minister aware that we have absolutely no objection to second chance learning centres that give those children a full opportunity to find their way back to the causeway? However, head teachers feel very strongly about the fact that they do not have the legal powers to exclude persistent offenders permanently.

Robert Brown: We have introduced structures—for example, with regard to additional learning needs—to address the matter across the board and have placed corporate duties on local authorities to deal adequately with such situations. After all, such problems require more than the rather limited response of excluding pupils, no matter how necessary that might be. Instead, we need a more extensive response that leads to long-term change.

I agree entirely with Robin Harper's aspiration for a genuinely liberal, child-centred education. He also highlighted the importance of visiting teachers of art, music and drama. Indeed, in one of our targets, we seek to take advantage of the opportunities provided by declining school rolls and increasing teacher numbers to boost the number of teachers in that regard.

Donald Gorrie made a number of interesting points about holding on to playing fields and about multisport centres. In Perthshire and elsewhere, I have been to see a number of multisport centres that the schools and communities use and that are working successfully. They are not a new idea, but they are well worth while encouraging.

Donald Gorrie also talked about youth work. We have just launched our consultation on the youth work strategy and I invite members who have an interest in that to respond to it by the 1 November closing date. We want the issues of resources throughout the country and outdoor education to emerge in the youth work debate. I recently had the opportunity to visit some of the youth hostels throughout Scotland. Those are part of the panoply of resources that are available and often provide some degree of expertise.

Richard Lochhead made a good speech about rural sustainability. There was much in what he said that members from all parties echoed. He will probably not be aware that, following the Education Committee's inquiry into the matter, the minister is about to write to the committee in response to its concerns about the 60 per cent threshold on which he touched. We do not want that threshold to be a determinant of policy on reviewing a rural school's future. Any local authority that wants to change the configuration of local schools must make a solid case for doing so against the background of some of the issues that Richard Lochhead rightly mentioned.

Stewart Stevenson made a relevant point about 85 per cent of prisoners being functionally illiterate. That, too, underlines some of the issues about which we have talked in the debate.

I have remarked before on the essential consensus in the Parliament on Scottish education. Not for the first time, that is borne out by the Opposition amendments. The Scottish National Party's amendment focuses on investment, while the Tories' amendment focuses on discipline and school boards. Those are certainly important issues, but they are hardly central to the system's direction.

I congratulate the Opposition parties on their support of our vision and the part that they play in committee in helping to refine and improve the Government's legislative programme. They are genuine and serious politicians and, like us, they want the best for our young people. However, let no member and no person who listens to the debate from the public gallery or beyond kid themselves that Scottish education's success or the widening horizons and exciting opportunities that are increasingly available to our young people are accidents or would have happened or would be safe in the Opposition parties' hands. Much work has gone into our current programme. Liberal Democrat and Labour members have contributed political insight and drive to moulding and delivering the partnership programme, while dedicated professionals in the civil service, local authorities and, above all, the schools have demonstrated commitment and care in delivering the programme.

We are a modernising Executive. We are delivering on our commitments to improve learning and teaching and create a dynamic and progressive education system that is fit for the 21st century. The Conservatives' searing electoral experiences since 1997 have not refreshed their vision. They are fighting the old battles on a sterile view of parental involvement and, even after the Parliament has spoken, will not engage with the opportunities for innovation and change that are offered by the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act 2006, which is one of the Parliament's most significant education acts.

There are incidents in our school from time to time, just as there are incidents in wider society, but the vast majority of our young people are well behaved and work hard in school. We take seriously the need to support our teachers, which is why we have invested heavily to support a range of interventions under the better behaviour, better learning banner. However, we all know that there is no magic bullet for indiscipline, no simplistic nostrum of the kind beloved of the Tories. The key, as always, is strong leadership and the promotion of positive behaviour.

The SNP wants to abandon our highly successful school building programme. Its members are world experts in simplistic solutions. They are concerned about investment in education but would put that education at risk with years of constitutional uncertainty and the curious notion that cutting taxes and raising spending at the same time adds up. If the standard of basic arithmetic that our SNP colleagues exhibit is typical, it is just as well that we are investing so much in recruiting so many new maths teachers. I do not know how anybody can say that the odd idea that it is possible to suspend the normal rules of the market and obtain an interest advantage of 3 per cent is justified by reality.

I will finish on the more positive note that underlay many of the speeches. The challenge that underlies what we are trying to do with the remainder of the parliamentary session and beyond, which Peter Peacock describes as a long-term agenda, is to deal with underachievement in the system, in the NEET group and among looked-after children. In modern Scotland, it is not acceptable for any young person to fail to fulfil their potential. The challenge is difficult and complex, and we should devote the rest of this parliamentary session and beyond to addressing it. We must succeed in that.

Motion Debated:

S2M-4755 Peter Peacock: Education First—That the Parliament welcomes the priority given to improving education standards by the Scottish Executive and the achievements delivered by schools, local authorities and other partners in taking forward the comprehensive modernisation of our schools and ensuring that Scotland's education system is amongst the best in the world; recognises that the Executive's investment in new and refurbished schools, increased teacher numbers, reducing class sizes, strong parental involvement, stable industrial relations and more targeted support for children with additional support needs is providing the right environment for real and lasting change for Scotland's children; believes that the education of all Scotland's children and young people is fundamental to securing a more productive, integrated and successful Scotland in which all our young people can compete in a global economy and all our 16 to 19-year-olds are in education, employment or training, and calls on all those in the Parliament to focus on Scotland's future and put the education of our children before divisive arguments about separating Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom.

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