Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Thursday, January 11, 2024

Official Report 1078KB pdf

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Portfolio Question Time

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Education and Skills

The next item of business is portfolio question time, and the first portfolio is education and skills. I remind members who wish to ask a supplementary question to press their request-to-speak button during the relevant question.

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Education Maintenance Allowance (Uptake)

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to encourage the uptake of education maintenance allowance among eligible pupils. (S6O-02942)

The education maintenance allowance is vital in supporting young people from lower income households to overcome financial barriers and stay in education. It is a central component of the Government’s support for young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Promotion and awareness raising of the programme locally remains the responsibility of our delivery partners, which are local authorities, the Scottish Funding Council and learning centres, such as colleges and schools, as set out in the annual guidance. However, the Scottish Government continues to work closely with those delivery partners in order to ensure that effective promotion is maintained. I would encourage every young person who is eligible to apply so that they can receive that vital support.

School attendance can be a huge challenge for pupils with additional support needs. Flexibility is key, with many young people requiring reduced timetables to best meet their educational needs.

Recently, I heard that some of those pupils have been told that they are not eligible for the education maintenance allowance. That seems unfair. A part-time timetable is a reasonable adjustment to meet an identified support need. What steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that pupils with additional support needs are encouraged to remain in education without compromising access to critical financial support? Is accurate data on part-time timetables routinely available?

I thank Stephanie Callaghan for raising that important issue. I share her concerns if young people with additional support needs are finding themselves in that position, which is even more concerning given the reported national increase in the number pupils with additional support needs towards the end of last year.

The guidance makes clear the need for flexibility when administering EMA for young people with additional support needs, because we recognise that they often require non-standard attendance patterns that might fall short of full-time criteria. We know that institutions are also encouraged to be flexible when they agree on attendance patterns for ASN pupils, and that should be agreed on and written into the pupils’ learning agreements.

We will continue to reiterate the need for that flexibility to delivery partners. In the meantime, if the member has any particular cases in which pupils with additional support needs have found themselves ineligible for the education maintenance allowance, I am happy for her to write to me with details on those matters.

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Swimming Lessons (Primary School Curriculum)

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has evaluated the extent to which swimming lessons are part of the school curriculum for primary school-aged pupils. (S6O-02943)

Schools in Scotland have the flexibility to decide on the content of their physical education lessons. The Scottish Government does not specifically evaluate the extent to which swimming lessons form a part of those decisions. We know that some local authorities offer swimming lessons as part of their physical education. In other cases, schools may take into account a range of factors, including the time that is required to travel to a swimming pool, in deciding against offering swimming lessons as part of PE. However, the Scottish Government has been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland and other stakeholders to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, competent and safer swimmers.

Learning how to swim is a life skill that has numerous physical, social and mental health benefits. I, and others, fully believe that every child should leave primary school having had the opportunity to learn to swim. Does the cabinet secretary agree that teaching our young people how to swim is an important skill that must be easily accessible to all across Scotland? Does the Government have any thoughts on how swimming lessons can be more embedded into the primary school curriculum?

The member raises an extremely important point. I agree that learning to swim provides many physical and mental wellbeing benefits, and we should be mindful of that in relation to curriculum for excellence entitlements. That is why, following the publication of the evaluation of the 2022-23 pilots, the Government and Education Scotland will to work with Scottish Swimming and sportscotland to look at the best approach for maximising the uptake of swimming among children and young people of school age. I am happy to ensure that the member is kept up to date on that work and I would welcome any further input that he may wish to provide on the matter.

Access to things such as swimming, sport, culture, languages and the arts is essential for young people to enjoy learning and become fit for the future, but some are worried that there is a lack of opportunity in those areas. I asked the Government about young people’s participation in cultural activities and was told that it tracked sporting, but not cultural, activity. Is the cabinet secretary confident that all young people have an equal opportunity to experience those things and will she commit to gathering data to ensure that they are?

The member raises an important point. As she will know, we are looking at what more we can do through the education reform agenda to ensure that those entitlements are met.

Curriculum for excellence provides a national curriculum that is not prescriptive, which is one reason why I cannot dictate that local authorities must deliver the swimming lessons mentioned in the previous question. I will speak to officials in relation to the specific point about cultural activity, to ensure that we are meeting those entitlements. That was one of the key recommendations that came from Professor Louise Hayward’s review and I am keen that we look again at those entitlements nationally to ensure equality of access to our curriculum.

The dangers of water are well understood in island communities such as Shetland. When I was a young child, I fell into Lerwick harbour and almost drowned. With that in mind, does the Scottish Government think that it is acceptable that 11-year-olds are leaving primary school without the life skill of being able to swim?

I thank the member for her question and for sharing some of her personal experience. I recognise the particular importance in island communities of having the skill of being able to swim.

As I intimated in my response to Ms Duncan-Glancy, I cannot mandate local authorities to deliver swimming education, but I am keen that we look at entitlements as part of our broader work with Education Scotland. The member’s point is hugely important and I would be keen to work with her, and with others who have an interest in the subject, to see what more we might be able to do to support schools.

We must also recognise that not all schools are in island communities and we must be mindful of local contexts and of the availability and accessibility of swimming pools. When I was at school, many years ago, we had a swimming pool in the school, but that is not the case in many schools in Scotland, so we must be mindful of the availability of swimming pools to ensure that we achieve the equity that Ms Duncan-Glancy spoke about.

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Universities and Colleges (Skills Planning)

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working with universities and colleges to address the reported skills gap across the economy. (S6O-02944)

As I confirmed to Parliament last month, and as per the recommendations made by James Withers in his report, the Scottish Government will take on skills planning at national level and will support the development of skills planning at the regional level. In so doing, we recognise that we must better align what is offered by the education and skills system with the strategic skills needs of the economy.

We are developing those approaches in close collaboration with colleges and universities and with others, particularly employers.

I have met many employers in the past year, and they consistently raise the key issue of the lack of skilled labour. What is the Government doing to encourage and support the development of skills, training and apprenticeships? Will the cuts to the Scottish Funding Council’s budget result in fewer college places?

I know that Alex Rowley knows that it is important to differentiate between skills and labour shortages and to determine, as we are doing, what skills are specifically being asked for. That is why I have asked portfolio ministerial colleagues to carry out an exercise to identify the exact nature of current and likely future skills needs and, in so doing, to engage directly with colleges and universities to determine what resources and capacity currently exist to meet those asks and how we can bring all of that together.

My direct conversations with the further and higher education sectors show that there is a strong appetite to develop the better alignment that is in everyone’s interests.

On the particular point about apprenticeships, I assure Alex Rowley that it is our intention to seek to better align those with the economic needs of the country.

There are a number of supplementary questions and I will try to get them all in.

Ensuring that there is an alignment between employers’ needs and skills provision in our colleges and universities is essential to tackling skills shortages across the economy. In that light, what work is the Government doing on a sectoral basis and with employers to ensure that the skills required now, and in the future, are identified and that the funding of colleges and universities is aligned with supporting employers’ needs?

Businesses and employers have a crucial role to play in helping to shape the provision in the system. The Government is already engaging with a wide variety of employers to look at the practicalities and options for delivering a more aligned offering. Of course, the skills planning team at Skills Development Scotland is at the forefront of that work.

Ivan McKee is right to highlight the need to approach the issue on a sectoral basis. From my direct engagement with employers, it is already clear to me that some sectors are more progressed than others when it comes to having the detail and specifics that we require in order to move forward. It may be that we pilot approaches as much on a sectoral level as on a geographical level. All that will be looked at in detail at an employers round table, which we will be putting together in the coming months. Learning providers will also be in the room, because we need all sides to be directly involved in order to deliver an agile, aligned and responsive skills and learning system.

According to research from the Fraser of Allander Institute, Scotland’s colleges boosted the Scottish economy by more than £8 billion, which is a more than tenfold return on investment.

What impact will last year’s £26 million cut and the proposed £58.7 million cut to the net college resource, which is proposed in the Government’s draft budget, have on that £8 billion contribution?

I think that the £26 million that Liam Kerr referred to is the transition fund, so it will have no direct impact.

The £58 million that he referred to was, of course, in line with the moneys that were reduced in year. In reality, the current year’s money for the colleges will match almost entirely the substance of their budget for next year.

In an ideal world, we would like to be able to better fund our colleges. If Mr Kerr has any constructive ideas as we go through the budget process, we will be all ears.

With regard to the current skills gap, how is the Scottish Government working with universities and colleges to promote the uptake of modern languages?

The Government is clear that access to learning modern languages is vital at all stages of education to equip children and young people with the skills that they need in an increasingly globalised world.

However, universities are autonomous institutions that are responsible for their course provision. It is for them to decide how to distribute the allocation of funded places between faculties and courses. Similarly, operational decisions, including resourcing and course provision, are matters for individual colleges. In both instances, we would look for that to be done in line with the needs of learners and the local economy.

Questions 4 and 5 were not lodged.

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Violence in Schools

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to tackle violence in schools and the impact that this is having on both pupils and staff. (S6O-02947)

No teacher, member of staff or pupil should have to suffer abuse in our schools. The series of summits that I held with a wide range of stakeholders on behaviour in schools concluded in November, and the behaviour in Scottish schools research, which has been published, provides an accurate national picture of behaviour in Scotland’s schools.

In my statement to the Parliament on 29 November, I confirmed that a multiyear plan is in development to tackle instances of challenging behaviour through working with local authorities, trade unions and others. The plan will be published as soon as possible.

I welcome that update and the different points that the cabinet secretary made in relation to progress. I fully agree that no one in our schools should feel unsafe or suffer abuse of any kind. I am pleased that the final stage of the series of behaviour stakeholder summits has taken place.

What particular attention is being given to tackling gender-based violence in our schools, which affects both pupils and staff? What engagement has there been with expert organisations such as Zero Tolerance, White Ribbon and SHE—Social, Health and Education—Scotland in my constituency?

I am very concerned by the findings in the BISS research in relation to increased misogyny in our schools, which, as has been pointed out, was found to affect both pupils and staff.

In the coming weeks, we will publish a national gender-based violence framework for schools, which will support them in preventing and responding to gender-based violence.

We will also continue to work very closely with key stakeholders, including those that Ben Macpherson mentioned, on the gender-based violence in schools working group, which we jointly chair with Zero Tolerance and Rape Crisis Scotland. That work will ensure that the framework not only supports schools in tackling gender-based violence and sexual harassment, but supports everyone in our schools so that they are protected and cared for and have their rights and needs respected.

There are a number of supplementary questions. We have a little time in hand this afternoon, so I will take them all, but that is not an invitation to go on for overly long. I ask again for brevity.

I have been inundated with correspondence from constituents who are raising concerns about the widespread violence in Fife schools. In Fife, 71 per cent of teachers who responded to a recent Educational Institute of Scotland survey reported experiencing violence on a daily basis, while officials said that members had been hospitalised due to physical attacks. It is concerning to see that we now have teenagers in Dunfermline engaging in attacks outside the school grounds. Such violence, including gender-based violence, has to stop. I am sure that the cabinet secretary accepts that any delay in dealing with the matter will allow violence to escalate and embed. When will the Government’s plans be implemented to support our teachers and parents?

The member raises a number of important points. She commented on some specific cases that I have not been sighted on, but if she wants to share any further detail with me, I would be keen to see it.

We will use the national research that has been published through the BISS research to inform our decision making around the national action plan. We must be cognisant, too, that we need to trust teachers in our classrooms to deliver the learning, teaching and behaviour that we expect in our schools. Yesterday, I visited two schools in Glasgow that are working to embed strong relationships to support better behaviour across the board.

We are working at pace on the plan with the Scottish advisory group on relationships and behaviour in schools and with the wider range of partners that I mentioned in my response to Mr Macpherson. In December, I met teaching unions, following my update to the Parliament, to discuss our response. We expect to publish the plan early this year. I am more than happy to write to Roz McCall with more detail on that. She will understand that, as cabinet secretary, I require the buy-in of and co-production with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, given that it runs our schools. I recognise the urgency of the issue, as the member intimated in her question.

In just the past few weeks, I have met a pupil support assistant with a broken wrist and a teacher who is off on long-term sick leave because of stress, both as a result of violence in the classroom. The education secretary knows that there is some disappointment and a degree of anger that the message from the statement in December was that teachers need better training. That cannot be the answer—they need more in-class support and more specialist support. I urge the education secretary to look again at the issue of boundaries and consequences, because I think that we have got that out of kilter. Will she look at that again to make sure that we get it right?

The member made similar suggestions in a debate at the end of the previous term. I tried to intervene on him at that time, but he did not allow me to do so, if he recalls. That was not the message from my statement to the Parliament at the end of term. My statement very much recognised the challenges, but we also need to be cognisant, as a Parliament, that the Government does not run our schools directly. We trust our local authorities, such as Fife Council in the member’s constituency, to support their school staff on the ground. The Government also has a responsibility here, which is why I introduced the national action plan, but that has to be done in conjunction with local authorities.

The member has given a number of examples, and he has talked again about consequences. I have been very clear that the national action plan will set out some of that in more detail. The feedback from headteachers at the BISS research events included a call for more of that to be set out at national level. I am keen to give that clarity so that headteachers understand the options that they have at their disposal. However, we need to be careful not to patronise the profession, which very much recognises how to develop and deliver good-quality learning and teaching and how to set boundaries for our young people. As part of that process, teachers also need support from their local authorities. That is why local authorities and COSLA must be key to the development of the national action plan and to the SAGRABIS work that I mentioned in my response to Roz McCall.

In order to get in the next supplementary questions, I will need a bit more brevity in both the questions and the responses.

Thank you for your indulgence, Presiding Officer.

The cabinet secretary will know that non-contact time is crucial in addressing the conditions in schools. Does she have the report that she commissioned on delivering that? If she does, when will she be able to share some of the detail with the Parliament?

I very much agree with the member on this issue. I do not yet have that report from my officials, but I am happy to write to the member as soon as I have received it, because I recognise the ask for additionality in relation to class contact time.

That is the example to follow.

What support can the Scottish Government offer to Northfield academy, in my Aberdeen Donside constituency, given that Education Scotland inspectors recently stated that more needs to be done to make pupils feel safe?

As the member will know, I visited Northfield academy back in August to understand the action that it was taking to address some of the concerns at the school. Undeniably, a number of challenges remain, but I am advised that the leadership team at the school is committed to driving improvements for pupils and staff alike.

Although decisions on the specific support that might be needed are matters for local authorities and schools, as part of our commitment to ensuring that schools are safe and consistent environments for all, we are working on the national action plan that I mentioned in previous responses.

Specifically in relation to Northfield academy, I have requested from my officials an update from the interim chief inspector of education on any additional support that we might be able to provide the school and the local authority at this time.

Given the extent of the problem, does the cabinet secretary think that it would be worth while to encourage schools to get the debate on this issue going at a local level—with the involvement of parents, pupils, teachers and all staff in the schools—to try to resolve it at a local level and engage people on the problem?

The member makes an interesting and positive suggestion. Yes, I think that it would be worth doing that.

Over the past few months, a number of pieces of research have been published on behaviour in Scotland’s schools. At the turn of the year, research was published on attendance and the integration of home and school during the pandemic. That is part of the challenge, so it would be worth while pursuing the member’s suggestion about a local approach to re-engage families with the school. I would be more than happy to work with the member on that issue.

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Traditional Skills (Training Programmes)

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address any challenges in relation to the accessibility of traditional skills programmes to ensure that young people have access to the same career opportunities. (S6O-02948)

Historic Environment Scotland continues to champion traditional skills and is working with stakeholders across the country to address traditional skills gaps to ensure that our historic buildings can thrive as part of the country’s sustainable future.

In addition, Skills Development Scotland delivers careers information, advice and guidance in all state secondary schools and in dedicated centres and community locations nationwide. Its all-age service empowers people from all communities to make their own learning and career decisions based on the best available career intelligence.

The closure of Edinburgh College’s stonemasonry programme has raised serious concerns about the future of stonemasonry in the capital and across Scotland. A recent stonemasonry survey report found that more than 200,000 buildings in Scotland were built before 1919, and it stated that we will

“need a healthy supply of stonemasons to adapt”

them

“to ensure our buildings are fit for purpose ... for decades to come”.

What work is the Scottish Government doing to provide for future generations of stonemasons? What work is being undertaken to develop new models to deliver national courses and apprenticeship schemes?

I associate myself with Miles Briggs’s comments in relation to the importance of the matter. As he does, I recognise the need to ensure that stonemasonry, like other traditional skills, is prioritised in our apprenticeship and training offering. The Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and I have tasked Historic Environment Scotland with developing proposals for a sustainable future model that ensures that we will continue to be able to access the skills that are required to maintain our historic buildings.

However, it must be recognised that delivery of stonemasonry apprenticeships is costly and that the number of apprentices involved do not provide a sufficient critical mass to allow for courses to be delivered across a multitude of locations. Therefore—although I do not wish to prejudge matters—a model involving a centre or centres of excellence might be the best way forward. Currently, three colleges—City of Glasgow College, UHI Moray and Forth Valley College—are engaged in such delivery.

I hope that I have provided Miles Briggs with some reassurance. Given his long-standing and genuine interest in the topic, I would be happy to continue to engage with him on it.

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Schools (Pupil Wellbeing)

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that teachers are fully equipped to safeguard the wellbeing of pupils. (S6O-02949)

The wellbeing and safety of children and young people in Scotland is a key priority for the Government. Our national guidance for child protection in Scotland describes the responsibilities and expectations for everyone who works with children and young people, and it emphasises the key role that the education workforce has in supporting and protecting children.

Education Scotland’s safeguarding in education national network brings together local authority leads to share safeguarding and education practice. The professional standards for Scotland’s teachers also set out the role of teachers in ensuring the wellbeing and safety of children and young people.

Last month, the United Kingdom Government published comprehensive guidance for teachers on how to support pupils who question their gender in schools. The guidance acknowledges the critical role that biological sex plays in maintaining safety and promoting equality in schools, and it recognises the profound psychological effects that social transitioning has on young people and the need for parental involvement in such life-changing decisions. Does the cabinet secretary agree that teachers should be fully equipped to discuss those issues with pupils? Will the Government introduce the same guidance for Scottish schools?

As the member might be aware, we are currently reviewing our relationships, sexual health and parenthood guidance, the consultation on which closed at the end of November last year. We received more than 4,000 responses to the consultation, which my officials are currently analysing. A report on that consultation will be produced shortly.

The initial findings suggest that the guidance needs to give more clarity, and it will be updated in the light of that feedback and other findings of the consultation in due course. I would be more than happy to write to the member with an update as soon as we publish the consultation data.

That concludes portfolio question time. There will be a brief pause before we move on to the next item of business.