John Swinney has vowed that under his leadership Scottish government ministers will have to work “ferociously to deliver improvement”.
Swinney made the commitment this morning - as he launched his bid to become Scotland’s first minister - after being asked how he would defend the SNP’s record in government.
Swinney - who is the only candidate in the SNP leadership race following Kate Forbes’ decision to pull out this afternoon - said he would “shout loud and proud about the SNP record because it’s transforming lives in our country today”.
Then, looking to the future, he added that “ministers that act on my behalf will be working ferociously to deliver improvement in the lives of people in Scotland. And I’ll be presiding over that”.
Once considered the party of competent government, the SNP’s reputation in this regard has been chipped away at increasingly in recent years, and education has played a big part in that erosion of confidence.
The perception is that standards are slipping and Scotland’s disappointing Programme for International Student Assessment results, published last year, did nothing to allay these fears.
However, when Swinney, who led the party previously between 2000 and 2004, elaborated this morning on the achievements the SNP could be proud of education - so frequently used as a stick to beat the government with - featured prominently.
He talked about the increase in free nursery hours saying they had “more than doubled since the SNP came to power” and schools that are “better resourced than other parts of the UK”.
He said that over 90 per cent of pupils are now educated in good or satisfactory buildings; that school leavers currently have the highest level of positive destinations “in history”, and ”more Scots than ever can go to university”
Sense of stagnation
But whatever Swinney’s take (or spin) on what has been accomplished in education over the SNP’s time in government, recently, the sense is the system is being allowed to stagnate.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development review of the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) - which Swinney commissioned during his time as education secretary - reported in 2021. It highlighted a disconnect between the ambitions of CfE and the qualifications in upper secondary, where the focus is on traditional exams.
Three years on and an independent review of qualifications and assessment - as well as numerous other reviews - have been published, but in schools, there has been no tangible change.
The focus on high-stakes end-of-year exams continues - students are sitting them now - and the Scottish Qualifications Authority has not been replaced.
Meanwhile, Education Scotland has not been reformed; the inspectorate has not regained its independence, and no “systematic approach to curriculum review” has been introduced - albeit several Tes Scotland exclusives have indicated some work on this front is underway behind the scenes.
Bond with Jenny Gilruth
Swinney is understood to have viewed education secretary Jenny Gilruth, who has been in post now for just over a year, as a rising star - Gilruth worked as Swinney’s parliamentary liaison officer when he was education secretary, a role he held from 2016 to 2021.
Does he still hold that view? She has certainly been loyal to him - within hours of Humza Yousaf’s resignation she was one of several senior SNP figures who declared support for Swinney.
But it would be hard to make the case that Gilruth has pursued “ferocious improvement” since becoming education secretary, with education directors complaining they have been left “in limbo” by the government’s stuttering approach to reform and its own international advisers saying, in November last year, the time for review was over and it was now “critical to implement change”.
Might schools and teachers hope, then, that having a former education secretary as first minister is good news?
Swinney’s own time as education secretary was far from an unmitigated success - he faced two no-confidence votes, presided over the 2020 results debacle and had to shelve his education bill.
However, he was willing to make decisions and act even if things did not always go to plan.
For instance, shortly after becoming education secretary, he scrapped unit assessments when teaching unions complained of a testing treadmill in schools that was creating a workload nightmare for teachers and pupils.
Strikes over pay, meanwhile, came on his successor Shirley-Anne Somerville’s watch, not his.
The ‘pragmatist’ who is ‘not Father Christmas’
One prominent figure in Scottish education told Tes Scotland today that they see Swinney as “a pragmatist” with “political nous” - he is “not Father Christmas”, they stressed, but he has “the sense to act, and to be seen to act, quickly”.
Swinney is perceived by some to be yesterday’s man - for the past year, it looked like he had left front-bench politics for good and he has talked on the BBC’s Nicola Sturgeon podcast about trying to leave frontline politics for years.
He said he offered to stand down after the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 and 2021 but Sturgeon - for whom he was a staunch ally often described as a “safe pair of hands” - talked him out of it.
Today, though, he said he would be “no caretaker” and “no interim leader”, and that he would lead his party through the upcoming Westminster election and “beyond” the scheduled 2026 Scottish Parliament election.
He painted himself as the leader the SNP needs in this particular moment - when the party is “not as cohesive as it should be” and needs “a strong, reassuring, experienced, skilled individual who can create the bridge to the future”.
Is Swinney who Scottish education needs? Time will tell, but someone at the top driving “ferocious improvement” could make a refreshing change in Scottish education.
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