Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Fiona Hislop
Speech at the SSTA 64th Annual Congress
Peebles Hydro on May 16, 2008
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Hello and thank you. First of all I would like to say a personal thank you to David Eaglesham for inviting me to your 64th Annual Congress.
I am very pleased to be here to discuss with you the present position in Scottish education, our progress over the past year, and, most importantly, the road ahead of us.
We are now one year on from the election. In our first year in government we have had a strong and clear sense of purpose. It has been a year of solid achievement.
We are working to deliver a Smarter Scotland as one of our five cross-government strategic objectives. And that work will be done in partnership with everyone in local government, national government, and the education establishment.
We have retained our focus on the strategic themes and principles which we stated at the beginning of the year.
Early Years
We have launched a process to develop a long term early years strategy covering child care, development and education. This reflects our commitment to the important bearing that early years experiences have on later life.
We are making substantial progress towards a 50% increase in pre-school entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds delivering 570 hours a year for each child - by August 2010 around 10 million more hours will be delivered than were delivered in 2006-07. The full commitment will be delivered in 2011.
There is a new Standard for Childhood Practice, which will give professional recognition to nursery and childcare workers.
And we are extending the trial of free, nutritious school meals for all primary one to three pupils in five council areas until the summer holidays.
Schools
We have agreed a new pay deal for teachers, worth more than seven per cent over three years.
We have taken the necessary first steps to start driving down class sizes in Primary 1 to 3 . We provided £9m last autumn to fund 300 extra teachers and at least 250 extra in teacher training in this academic year.
And we have pledged to deliver more than 20,000 new teachers in training by 2011 - the greatest number since Devolution - to work across all age groups - maintaining the number of teachers currently working in Scotland.
We are working with local government to deliver a Curriculum for Excellence, and next month will see the release of a new framework for curriculum planning and the launch of a public consultation on National Qualifications.
We have appointed a National Co-ordinator of Youth Work and Schools, to improve links and communication between the youth work sector and schools.
And we have substantially increased capital resources available to authorities under the terms of the concordat signed with CoSLA. Almost £3 billion will be available to authorities over three years to secure investment in infrastructure including £115 million extra capital for local authorities in 2008/09 which can be invested in school buildings. Our spending plans were set against the background of the worst financial settlement from the UK Government since devolution. This year, our budget rose in real terms by only 0.5% - compared to the 11.5% increase above inflation the previous administration received in 2003-04.
We have recognised the scale of the challenge that lies before us and we are using the resources available to us to face that challenge.
Further and Higher Education
We have successfully legislated to abolish the graduate endowment fee. The Graduate Endowment Abolition (Scotland) Act restores free education and means that all current and future students, as well as those who graduated on or after April 1, 2007 will not have to pay the charge.
We have secured additional financial support for Crichton Campus in Dumfries following the publication of a new Academic Strategy by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). And for the first time, government will deliver teacher training in a part of the country which sometimes struggles to recruit teachers.
Scottish Colleges and universities receive in our first year, on top of their annual budget an extra £30 million in revenue and £100 million in a capital funding package. Additionally the Government will be legislating to ensure that colleges retain their charitable status.
More than 20,000 part-time students across Scotland will benefit from new support being introduced next autumn. A £500 grant to replace loans will benefit new and existing higher education students earning £18,000 or less.
It is through these achievements that we aim to expand the opportunities for our young people to succeed at all stages of their lives.
OECD
The recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Review on the "Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland" was impressed by the breadth and vision of the new curriculum.
The main findings of the OECD report highlight the strengths of the Scottish system: a strong commitment to comprehensive education, a world class approach to teacher induction and the near universal and high quality pre-school education. It also highlighted the contribution of Scottish primary schools to the Scottish education system.
However, as you will know, the report also outlined some important challenges: the continued achievement gap and the need to make the experience in upper secondary education more relevant and engaging for all students. There were some tough messages in the report on the academic bias in the system and tellingly, it commented
"In Scotland, who you are is far more important than what school you attend. But the fact that it does matter who you are also says that the school system as a whole is not strong enough to make this not matter."
We see Curriculum for Excellence as being absolutely central to tackling these challenges.
We already have a great deal of excellent teaching in Scotland and in discussion the OECD were eager to stress this. However, effective curriculum reform must come from schools and teachers themselves, not officials or educational theorists. It is teachers who are best placed to meet the needs of individual learners and you are all key to the success of Curriculum for Excellence. You are all leaders in that regard. In line with the recommendations of the report, I am now challenging each of you individually, as well as together as a body, to become fully engaged champions of a Curriculum for Excellence.
Curriculum for Excellence
This is an invigorating and exciting time for all of us who are involved in education in Scotland. Almost all of the draft learning experiences and outcomes have now been released for engagement and trialling. My Parliamentary announcement last month on our plans to consult on the next generation of qualifications for our young people marks another major milestone on our way to fully implementing Curriculum for Excellence. My ambitions for Curriculum for Excellence are focused on achieving better educational outcomes for all young people, with more choices and more chances for those young people who need them.
That means:
- a coherent and inclusive curriculum from 3 to 18 in every setting
- a focus on outcomes
- a broad, general education for all
- from 15, time to take qualifications in ways best suited to the young person
- more opportunities to develop skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work for all young people at every stage
- a focus on literacy and numeracy, and health and wellbeing at every stage
- appropriate pace and challenge for every child
- ensuring connections between all aspects of learning and support for learning
In the past few months I have brought before Parliament three debates relating to Curriculum for Excellence. Last month I stated my belief that key to the success of Curriculum for Excellence is the role of leadership from the education profession. There is no doubt whatsoever that your role within local authorities, schools and classrooms and in engaging with colleagues, pupils and parents is critical in stimulating and supporting that leadership.
As I have stated, the OECD report highlights this approach, placing emphasis on curriculum reform coming from schools and teachers rather than 'waiting for central directions'. I have accepted responsibility to provide leadership at a national level by engaging Scotland more widely and leading a Scotland wide campaign. I am investing time building up support for Curriculum for Excellence with scientists, academics, employers, sector skills councils, colleges and universities to build the required community of support, trust and engagement. We all have our part to play.
I mentioned earlier my recent announcement on plans for consulting on the next generation of qualifications for Scotland's young people, and I would like to share with you briefly now an outline of what I am proposing. We have reflected on our current shape of qualifications and found that in general our existing system works well for many young people. However, we need to look at how our qualifications system can best meet the needs of Scotland in the 21st century.
With that in mind, the consultation will focus on a range of proposals.
- These include our plan to introduce new awards in literacy and numeracy
- We will also introduce a new qualification to replace Standard Grade and Intermediate qualifications at SCQF levels 4 and 5. This will be available in a wide range of subjects and will reflect the best features of the current arrangements.
- National Qualifications at Access, Higher and Advanced Higher will be retained. Highers, in particular, will remain, the "gold standard". We will, however, review the content of National Qualifications at all levels to ensure that they reinforce the values, purposes and principles of Curriculum for Excellence
- We will also use the consultation to investigate ways to increase flexibility in the way that qualifications are used, in order to meet the needs of young people more effectively.
Following discussion with teachers unions, particularly SSTA, we accepted your advice that it would be inappropriate to consult on qualifications until the proposals on the curriculum was more fully in place. The consultation will start and the consultation documents will be published shortly after the draft outcomes have been released within the next month.
The other major piece of work that will be published and launched at the same time as the qualifications consultation in early June is the Building the Curriculum 3 - A Framework for Learning and Teaching document. We know that the changes brought about in schools and other educational establishments by Curriculum for Excellence will present both a number of challenges and opportunities for those planning the curriculum. Building the Curriculum 3 should assist in that work by providing a framework for it - amongst other things, it will emphasise the definition and purpose for the curriculum, the principles for curriculum design, reinforce the central place of well planned experiences and outcomes, and set out a range of entitlements for all children and young people.
As of this summer we will be taking a major step forward on Curriculum for Excellence. We will have the draft experiences and outcomes across the curriculum. We will have a new framework for learning and teaching. We will be consulting on the new generation of qualifications.
This really is a major step forward. Work will, of course, need to follow, exemplifying what can be done and offering guidance on assessment and reinforcing the role of skills in the curriculum. I recognise the need to "kick-start" the content provision for the curriculum and have asked that this be provided in coming months, drawing on the educational expertise of teachers and academics.
I am doing my bit leading this change. I now need to see leadership reflected across the profession.
As educational professionals, you have a fundamental role in helping to develop and implement Curriculum for Excellence and one such area where that has been so evident recently is with your level of input and help with implementing the trialling of the draft experiences and outcomes in some of your schools. These structured arrangements for engagement through trialling are one way in assisting us to gather robust evidence on the effectiveness of the draft outcomes and experiences and their practical implications in terms of planning, teaching and learning, evaluating, capacity and resource management. At the last count over 350 educational establishments nationally are currently involved in the trialling and the early feedback from the participants has been extremely positive. Thank you to those of you who have been involved in that work.
Concordat
The OECD strongly recommended that Scotland would benefit from a more decentralist approach in education at this time, in the ongoing development of our education system. In my all-day session with the OECD, who produced the report, I was delighted to tell them that the new government had already taken steps to do that.
The Concordat highlights 15 key National Outcomes we want to see. One of those Outcomes is the delivery of the Curriculum for Excellence which demonstrates the importance we attach to that.
The Concordat also established a new relationship between local and Scottish Government setting out our shared objectives and the National Outcomes we want to achieve. It recognises the critical contribution improving education makes to the future economic prosperity in Scotland. That is a key objective of this Government.
The Concordat represents a fundamental and important shift in Scottish governance describing a new relationship with local government based on mutual respect and partnership - on parity of esteem. One away from the old system of central government at loggerheads with local government to one where we work together for common aims.
Of course, that principle of subsidiarity doesn't stop at the door of Council leaders or Directors of Education for that matter. The challenge I have made to councils - to the political leadership and to senior management - now is how they themselves embrace that approach and extend that autonomy and decision making to the schools in their area as far as possible.
In the furore of the current climate that principle is sometimes too easily forgotten. But let's remind ourselves. The Concordat set out:
- a joint commitment to improve the fabric of schools and nurseries
- a joint commitment to develop and deliver a Curriculum for Excellence
- a joint commitment to class size reduction that brings with it specific arrangements to allow local government to broadly maintain teacher numbers at existing levels in the face of falling school rolls in Scotland, and
- a joint agreement that - for the first time ever - local government can reinvest efficiency savings in frontline services. I would strongly argue that should be in education.
This provides an important and exciting programme of work for the future.
Of course, devolving decision making brings attendant challenges. It also places more emphasis on local agreement and on building effective relationships. TP21 brought significant benefits for the teaching profession and I continue to support that Agreement. However, in return I expect support from you to ensure that it continues to provide the right framework for teachers to deliver a Curriculum for Excellence and to meet the other challenges I have mentioned.
Given the changes in the way we will work with local government, it will be also important to re-evaluate the existing mechanisms we have and the tripartite SNCT partners may need to reflect on how that body operates in the post Concordat environment. Part of that will be the need for all sides to consider the quality of relationships at local levels. I see that as a real opportunity.
It is crucial that we think about the role of schools and teachers themselves, and make sure that teachers have the space to work in the way that most benefits the children and young people in their charge.
I believe this agenda offers real opportunities to deliver better outcomes for our young people.
Conclusion
In a globalised world, governments cannot operate in isolation. We all face many of the same economic and social challenges and are working towards finding solutions. It is essential that Scotland continues to take an international perspective which develops to meet new challenges.
If we want Scotland to be all it can be, then all our people need to develop skills - in the widest sense - so that they can be all they can be.
Ultimately, it's your professionalism, enthusiasm, creativity and skills as teachers which will be instrumental to delivering the outcomes we want to achieve over the coming years.
The challenges I have set will not be easy, but if we achieve them, I believe the outcomes will raise standards and expectations across the nation. They will help us to build the Scotland that we have been entrusted to deliver.
Be assured that I am absolutely committed to working together with you to secure the future our young people deserve.
Thank you.