Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Taoiseach, became minister of health having been a doctor.
When asked if that direct experience of the health service was valuable when he was responsible for running it, he said he was able to learn quickly as a minister and it gave him “a certain level of credibility”.
However, there was also a downside. In such a situation you come into your ministerial job “with preconceived notions and preconceived ideas”, he told Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on the podcast The Rest is Politics: Leading.
Ultimately, Mr Varadkar - who last week unexpectedly announced that he would be stepping down as Irish prime minister - concluded that secretaries of state and ministers really need to be experts in “legislation”, “communication” and “getting things done”.
Tomorrow marks a year since Jenny Gilruth was appointed as Scotland’s education secretary.
Gilruth was a secondary teacher before being elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2016, and there was some optimism, therefore, that she would hit the ground running as education secretary. However, since her appointment arguably the biggest bugbear has been her apparent inability to get things done.
What has Jenny Gilruth achieved in her first year?
A series of reports have identified major issues with the Scottish curriculum, the qualifications regime in upper secondary, and key education bodies, including the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Education Scotland.
At the same time Scottish students’ worsening performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests have prompted more calls for change - as have reports that show both behaviour and attendance are in decline.
Yet it is hard to point to any concrete action from government to address these issues, even though the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development review of Curriculum for Excellence - which highlighted, among other things, the “misalignment between Curriculum for Excellence’s aspirations and the qualification system” - is nigh on three years old.
Professor Ken Muir’s recommendations, meanwhile, on taking forward the reform of the SQA and Education Scotland are now two years old, and the qualifications review conducted by Professor Louise Hayward will, in June, be a year old.
Pausing reform to consult teachers
After becoming education secretary, Gilruth played for time and paused reform in a bid to digest a number of “substantive reports” in her in-tray and ensure that change was “holistic”. She also said she wanted to consult teachers.
So far, so reasonable - inflicting a series of rushed reforms on an already-stretched system would not be in the interests of teachers or pupils.
But there is a balance to be struck and a difference between slow reform and no reform. Scottish education cannot be allowed to stand still and stagnate. And, significantly, those in the system - who would have to deliver any changes - are urging the education secretary to press ahead.
‘Get Hayward done’
In November directors of education told Gilruth at their conference that they felt like they were “in limbo” - they urged her to “get Hayward done”.
At another conference held the same month a primary headteacher told her: “You’re in the chair, you need to make the decisions, and it’s time now to get on with it.”
Schools have to have improvement plans and when they are inspected they have to demonstrate “capacity for continuous improvement”.
There is an acceptance that irrespective of the challenges faced - whether staffing is tight or budgets are stretched - school leaders will always be striving to make their schools better through planned incremental change.
What’s the plan?
So where is Gilruth’s improvement plan for education? What is her vision? And how is she going to get there?
A year in and there is no obvious answer to these questions.
In an interview with STV’s Scotland Tonight programme last night, Gilruth said she was “listening to teachers” - but when will listening turn into doing? When will we see the education secretary demonstrate that all-important ability flagged up by Varadkar - the ability to get things done?
Emma Seith is senior reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith
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