On the afternoon of 4 May 2007, the result of the Scottish parliamentary election was in the balance. Some 19 hours after polls had closed, Labour - which had dominated politics in Scotland for half a century - and the SNP were locked on 46 seats apiece.

At 5.30pm came the news that the SNP had secured victory, with just one more MSP than Labour. The soon-to-be first minister, Alex Salmond, quickly proclaimed “the new politics of Scotland”.

Political pundits struggled to describe the significance of the day and what might happen next. One politics professor said: “We are like Christopher Columbus setting out on a voyage of discovery over the ocean.”

In 2011, the SNP defied an electoral system designed to ensure coalition government by winning an overall majority; in the 2015 general election, it won 56 of 59 seats. What seemed like a one-off victory in 2007 instead ushered in a period of dominance.

Compared with today, education seemed relatively peripheral in the early years of SNP government. Yes, there were flagship policies around class sizes and tuition fees, but the education section of the party’s 2007 manifesto was as far back as page 48, and, during seven years as first minister, Alex Salmond was far quieter on education than his successor, Nicola Sturgeon.

That steady-as-she-goes period is long gone. In 2007, there was a far greater sense of everyone involved in Scottish education pulling together, following the 2001 McCrone deal on teacher pay and conditions and the 2002 national debate that led to Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Now, though, the ripple effects of the 2008 financial crash continue to hit local education spending. The SNP’s unexpected 2011 landslide made an independence referendum inevitable, with critics saying that it took the government’s eyes off education.

Walter Humes, honorary professor at the University of Stirling, who has co-edited the Scottish Education reference book since its first edition in 1999, sees “a consistent gap between rhetoric and actual achievement” in the past decade of government.

On the plus side, “education has been high on the political agenda” and many aspirations - such as closing the attainment gap, better pre-school arrangements and widening access to higher education - enjoy widespread support.

But, adds Humes: “A pattern of ‘policy as spectacle’ developed - that is, high-profile initiatives launched with much boasting that were not sufficiently thought through or adequately evaluated.”

He believes that “frequent ministerial changes” - there have been four SNP education secretaries - have made it easier for “the traditional policy community…to conceal what is happening on the ground”.

Classroom teachers’ voices “need to be conveyed more directly to government, not filtered through agencies such as Education Scotland and SQA [the Scottish Qualifications Authority]”, he urges.

The impact of CfE

What impact has Scotland’s landmark education reform - Curriculum for Excellence - had? After all, it envisaged a more flexible learning environment, where teachers could maximise all pupils’ abilities and interests. But has it really empowered teachers?

The language of CfE has been too vague, Humes says, with “far too much reliance on cosy, feelgood discourse” and vagueness around terms such as “active learning” and “interdisciplinary learning”. Pressure to evaluate CfE was “resisted for a long time” and the 2015 review by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was limited by a lack of data, he adds.

CfE, despite some “worthwhile differences”, is beset by a “drift towards incoherency”, says Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at the University of Edinburgh. He criticises “completely unnecessary” exam reform, such as the “devalued” National 4, and a “serious narrowing of the curriculum” in S3-4.

The government has been “sidetracked into many financially wasteful policies that have no demonstrable educational benefit”, such as “marginal” changes to class sizes, he says.

A recurring question in recent years has been whether, in an empirical sense, we can actually tell how well Scottish education is doing. As first minister, Sturgeon has insisted that standardised national assessments, due to begin across Scotland after the summer (in P1, P4, P7 and S3), will allow a comprehensive national picture.

That apparent commitment to data-led policy was undermined by the government’s decision to scrap the annual Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy - the results of which came out this week - after it showed downward trends.

“Scottish education now is a data desert,” says Paterson. He believes that the decisions to withdraw from international surveys such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timms) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) were big mistakes.

“The last 10 years has been a bit of mixed bag,” says Daniel Murphy, an academic and former secondary headteacher, who co-edited a book on 50 years of comprehensive education in Scotland.

Looking at the positives, he cites early years expansion; CfE implementation (“in primary, at least”); greater professionalisation of teaching through the implementation of “some aspects” of 2011’s Donaldson report on teacher education; and “continuing investment in new school buildings, after a shaky start”.

But the senior phase has suffered from “messy national policy”, and exam reform lacks “an underlying educational rationale”, says Murphy. He also wants more clarity on the knowledge and skills that learners should have by their 18th birthday.

A common trope around CfE over the years has been that primary schools were “already doing it” and would adapt more easily. However, a different picture is painted by George Gilchrist, a recently retired primary headteacher who also writes an education blog (see gg1952.blogspot.co.uk).

He says that many councils are “struggling” to increase nursery provision, and draws a parallel with class sizes, for which “the headline proposal took no account of the cost implications…or of the increase in staffing required”. He agrees that science, languages and technology have increased their profiles, as the 2007 manifesto envisaged. However, that is set against “very crammed timetables” as primaries struggle to squeeze in other priorities, such as the Daily Mile, sex education and two hours of PE a week.

Digital ‘disaster’

Meanwhile, schools’ ability to exploit new technology is being undermined by slow broadband, while the Glow digital learning environment “remains a disaster”, more than a decade after its conception, says Gilchrist.

“I think overall…the dire financial predicament of many local authorities has created massive challenges for primaries,” he argues. “When linked to [their] staffing and leadership difficulties, these challenges have only been compounded.”

But John Swinney, deputy first minister and education secretary, tells Tes Scotland that Scottish education has seen “significant progress in the last 10 years”.

He points to increased “free, high-quality early learning and childcare” and “record amounts” invested to close the attainment gap, including “£120 million of funding direct to schools this year alone” and £50 million through the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

Swinney highlights the country’s “welldesigned, accessible and inclusive learning environments”, with 607 schools built or refurbished from 2007 to 2015, as well as Higher exam passes being up by 30 per cent since 2007, and the number of pupils leaving school with at least one Higher or equivalent being up by almost 45 per cent.

The number of full-time college students who are completing recognised highereducation qualifications is at an all-time high, he adds, while a third fewer young people are unemployed, compared with 2007, and there is “encouraging progress in widening access to university”.

@Henry_Hepburn