Pam Duncan-Glancy has only been Scottish Labour’s education spokesperson since April but has already made a big impression.
Her tightly focused, well-researched questions in Parliament have put education secretary Jenny Gilruth on the spot a number of times, adding extra oomph to her party’s education pronouncements - party leader Anas Sarwar almost never raises education in Parliament and is far more focused on health.
Now she is driving a bill that she hopes will transform the prospects of thousands of school leavers, and ensure that her own experience of trying to to make the transition into higher education is consigned to the history books: it took her two years to get to university after finishing school.
Duncan-Glancy - a list MSP for Glasgow region since 2021 and the first permanent wheelchair user elected to the Scottish Parliament - did not struggle with the transition because she did not have the right grades or because she wanted to take a gap year. Rather, councils argued over who should pay for the support package that she needed. Then everything was further delayed because “what was being proposed wasn’t going to be suitable for a young woman…starting her university life”.
It was suggested that carers would help her get to bed at around 7.30pm. Apart from ruling out “normal stuff” like going to the pub and the union, this would also have meant missing some classes.
Ultimately, Duncan-Glancy was able to take up her place at the University of Stirling - albeit two years later than originally hoped - and graduated with a degree in psychology, and later an MSc in health psychology. But it is not surprising to hear that the Transitions Bill she is spearheading means a lot to her: she believes a disabled young person trying to make the move into higher education today would have “almost exactly the same experience” - even though over two decades have passed since her own difficulties.
“It’s still a problem, and I think that’s tragic,” she says.
In her first year while waiting to get into university, Duncan-Glancy went back to school and sat more qualifications. In the second year she volunteered as a pupil support assistant in her old primary school, Mosstodloch Primary, near Fochabers in Moray. That year she also earned some money answering calls for a local taxi company .
“I ended up getting my Higher modern studies and learned about politics, and I might never have done that,” she says. “So they weren’t wasted [years] but it wasn’t my intention and it meant I had to make decisions not based on what I wanted to do but based on what the system was prepared to support. It’s not how it should be - and it’s still like that.”
Improving transition to university for disabled students
Duncan-Glancy cites figures from university admissions service Ucas that show disabled applicants are 32 per cent more likely to defer entry to university. In a 2022 report on the experience of disabled students in education, Ucas said a “key takeaway” was that “students need earlier support to avoid deferring”.
She also highlights other research showing that disabled 16-year-olds have the same aspirations as their peers but that by their mid-20s they believe nothing they do can change their future, “so you’ve lost hope”.
“All young people should have that opportunity to get excited about the future and what it is they want to be - whatever path they want to take. But instead there’s a large cohort of people who are being distracted by process, bureaucracy and systems, as opposed to ambition and aspiration,” says Duncan-Glancy.
The Transitions Bill’s proposals have three main strands: a national transitions strategy; a minister responsible for the transitions of children and young people; and a statutory duty placed on local authorities to plan for their transitions.
The Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee heard earlier this year from PAMIS, an organisation that supports people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, that transitions planning should begin years in advance, but in reality it isn’t “starting until six months before they go, if that”.
“I had to make decisions not based on what I wanted to do but based on what the system was prepared to support”
However, the committee also heard there is not universal agreement that more legislation is the answer. Some are concerned about the impact that more legislation could have on what they see as a cluttered policy landscape, and call for more resources to support existing policy. On the other hand, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health says a non-legislative approach would be more easily ignored than statutory duties.
Duncan-Glancy says a statutory strategy is needed because “we can’t really afford for this to be the whim of one government or another” and “people need to have the right to [adequate support]”.
As a child she went to “three really good mainstream primaries” and had “a good experience there”, and “really, really loved it” at Milne’s High School in Fochabers. But her parents were always battling in the background to ensure that she got the support she needed.
“My mum and dad fought really, really hard. I never felt that when I was young - I didn’t realise the fights that they had - but they had a real desire for me to have the same experience as my younger sister, who’s just a year younger than me. So they had almost a direct comparator - they had one disabled and one non-disabled daughter, and they could see the difference in experience that was potentially facing us,” says Duncan-Glancy.
She adds that her experience at secondary school, while extremely positive, was reflective of a comment in Angela Morgan’s 2020 review of additional support for learning that “the implementation of [ASL] legislation is over-dependent on committed individuals”.
“My experience - as well as my mum being so pushy - was probably good because of a few really good members of staff who were prepared to make the change and make the difference. But that’s no way to run an education system - that it should be so varied.
“The system is not built to be as supportive as it should be, because teachers don’t have time; they are overstretched and the recruitment problems we have got in teaching - all of that makes it a really difficult environment.”
What would Labour do differently?
Duncan-Glancy spells out other problems that she sees in Scottish education: too few permanent contracts for new teachers; large class sizes; reductions in specialist additional support needs staff; and an undelivered promise to increase teacher non-class contact time. Add to that Covid and “the collective trauma of the last four years” and you have a “pressure cooker environment” that in the worst-case scenario may lead to violent behaviour from pupils.
The big question is, of course, how would Labour do things differently, given that the coffers appear bare?
The money lost on the ferries scandal could have helped to address the problems faced by schools, says Duncan-Glancy. She has “no doubt” that a Labour government would put children at the heart of the system; pay teachers properly; ensure that they have secure contracts; and give teachers the time to do things other than be in front of classes.
When it comes to outlining specific policies, Duncan-Glancy says her priority for now is to hold the Scottish government to account and make its promises on education “happen sooner rather than having to wait for a Labour government to fix it all”. She says she is going to “take some time to think exactly about what we need to do” before the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.
“So that’s what I’m going to be spending the next period doing - working with teaching unions, teachers, parents and pupils, and colleges and unis, to understand, what does it mean for class contact time? What does it mean for teacher pay? What does it mean for recruitment numbers? What does it mean for the funding model for colleges and universities? What does it mean for what we teach in the curriculum?”
Duncan-Glancy insists that more clarity on her party’s education policies will come, but makes no apology for taking her time.
“The money that we have is finite - and we need to make sure that we use it properly and it has the maximum impact,” she says.
