Chamber and committees

I go back to the point that I made to Mr Kerr about there being record numbers of Scottish young people going on to university at the current time. I do not think that the removal of places will adversely affect that.

The second point that I made to Mr Kerr was about the allocation work with the SFC, which, at this stage in the financial year, we would not expect to have detail on—that has not been the case at any point in the past. However, I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on that point.

The SFC looks at those calculations every year. It considers the very point that you make about calculating the number of spaces and the funding that is required. Then, of course, ministers are required to make grant provisions. We will write to the SFC about our expectations of how we can protect certain courses and young people from certain groups, for example, and that will be factored in to the allocation from the SFC. However, you are right to say that the SFC looks at that as a forward planning approach.

The places that you refer to are unique in that they are additional Covid places that we built in during the pandemic. At a time of financial uncertainty and extreme challenge across my portfolio, their removal was one of the less worse options—I suppose you could describe it as that—for how we might balance the education and skills budget.

The arrangements around colleges’ flexibility were made by Mr Dey and my predecessors, so they were baked in. It is fair to say that, as you heard from him last week, some of the changes have not been as dramatic as we hoped and have not delivered the flexibility that Mr Dey and I and our predecessors hoped for.

The SFC has made some enhancement in relation to flexibilities on the college funding mode and, now that the budget has been published, it is working with the sector on what the sector can deliver with the resources that it has. However, that has not happened overnight. There has been a challenge over a number of years with the power that colleges have to be flexible.

Through the tripartite group—I know that the committee took evidence about that from Mr Dey last week—we are examining any remaining opportunity that there might be to give colleges that additionality, particularly when ensuring public accountability, because they do not have the same flexibilities that other bodies have. I recognise that challenge. Colleges have raised it with me directly since I was appointed. That work includes our considering processes that allow our colleges to have the maximum flexibility to allow funds to be generated from estate disposals, for example.

I know that the committee took evidence on that exact point last week. It is fair to say that those arrangements are not operating in the way we would have hoped. Part of the challenge relates to the classification of colleges. Stuart Greig might want to say a little more on that, because I know that it is a historic challenge for colleges. The answer rests in the tripartite group’s work to look again at how we can drive forward more flexibility in this space. As you heard from Mr Dey last week, that has not worked in the way that we first envisaged.

I have the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service statistics in front of me. I do not know whether they are for 2022-23, but they show that more than 35,000 Scots have, once again, secured a place at one of our universities. The data from last December shows that record numbers of young people aged 19 and under secured a university place in 2023—that is, last year. That includes a record number of young people aged 19 and under from deprived areas. On Mr Kerr’s point about socioeconomic disadvantage, it is hugely important that we remember that cohort of young people who are supported through our school system through things such as the Scottish attainment challenge and the fact that we have a consistency of policy approach to widening access to higher education.

Mr Macpherson asked about numbers. Since 2006-07, when my party came into office, the number has increased by more than 31 per cent to 33,880 in 2021-22. Significant numbers—as he suggests, a record number—of young people who live in Scotland are now going on to study full-time degrees at Scottish universities. That progress is certainly to be welcomed.

I do not have that figure. Mr Greig, do you have that?

We need to consider other things. In a previous response to a member, I referenced my concern about the college sector more generally and the precarious nature of the sector, particularly in recent years. Baking in some of the financial challenge that we have across Government makes the situation even more challenging for the sector.

I am also conscious of the role that our college sector plays for some our most vulnerable young people. It has a reach that other parts of the education sector do not, and we in the Government need to be mindful of that. I am keen that, through the reform process, we better understand that.

Although I understand that the committee took evidence from Mr Dey on that issue last week—and I will shortly give evidence on school reform—we must have a better connection between the two. They currently feel disparate, which is why I have reformed some of the governance arrangements. You might think that that is a tweak—“Who cares, cabinet secretary? That is not going to deliver real change on the ground”—but I think that it is important that we have a more joined-up approach to how we deliver our education system. That delivery model was meant to be part of the narrative and rhetoric around curriculum for excellence, yet we are still siloed in how we think about the delivery of school education and higher education.

I know that Mr Dey spoke last week about opportunities for reform, particularly for colleges. That is not just about Ms Maguire’s point on flexibilities, and the colleges recognise that. The opportunities include, for example, the potential for colleges to take more of a leading role in the delivery of modern apprenticeships. I heard Mr Dey speak to some of that last week. That colleges-first model would be quite a shift for the sector in the future, but perhaps there is an opportunity, through some of that work on reform, to better support the sustainability of the sector. I suppose that that goes back to Ms Duncan-Glancy’s point that there is no additionality here—there is not, but we need to look at how we work smarter in the future to help protect that sustainability.

A number of colleges are having a challenging time. I know that the SFC is working with them directly on that. I think that, in the evidence session last week, Mr Dey spoke about the colleges that the SFC has been supporting directly. It does that anyway, without ministers getting involved, but we need to be mindful of this becoming more of a challenge for our colleges sector in the current financial climate. I think that reform and the flexibilities that we have previously mentioned offer an opportunity and a route forward.

Absolutely. That is why the careers service and SDS have a key role to play in that endeavour, and it is also why we cannot divorce school reform from the wider skills agenda on which Mr Dey is leading.

Yes. AI gives us a number of opportunities. The committee has written to me specifically on that and I will provide a substantive response in my written reply.

In her review, Professor Hayward made a number of recommendations about AI. In my conversations with Graham Donaldson during the summer, we spoke about how AI could be used in the future to reduce teacher workload. We need to explore such things through reform. Timetabling is an extremely political subject for any secondary school teacher that the committee may speak to. In a school that I worked in formerly, we used to joke that a depute was locked in a cupboard for a week to write the timetable, because it was such a stressful job to pull all of that information together. I am keen to explore any opportunities for using AI, particularly in relation to reducing teacher workload.

I see a role for Education Scotland in that. I know that the committee took evidence from Ollie Bray on AI. Education Scotland should have a key role to play in developing guidance that can help to reduce teacher workload, whether that is timetabling or other work that AI might be able to support.

I feel as though we are at the beginning of our journey with AI, and it changes every day. Qualifications reform will need to be developed in response to some of that change, because it is so fast paced. We can learn a lot from the university sector, too. I will be happy to give a substantive response to the committee on AI specifically.

But that is the reality at the current time, is it not?

I am not going to use my rusty higher French to respond to Mr Kerr—

Ha! I believe that Mr Rennie has attempted to set a trap for me in asking about what I think is wrong with Scottish education.