With a new first minister - and a new cabinet - comes an opportunity for renewal. And when a new administration of the same political party takes office, it is a time for reflection on current policy and outcomes.
Scotland’s new education secretary, Jenny Gilruth, is an experienced MSP and minister. A former secondary teacher, she has an unenviable and varied in-tray of reform and commitments to deliver, and an extensive list of substantial issues having an impact on education in Scotland.
During his campaign to become the new first minister and leader of the SNP, Humza Yousaf said that he was “happy” to be labelled the “continuity candidate”. So far, we can see that position of continuity running through the early policy positions taken by the education secretary.
We have seen no divergence in key areas of education policy in the early days of the new government.
The previous commitment to substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap by 2026 remains downgraded to an “ambition”, the reform of Scotland’s education bodies continues along previously agreed terms - including the decision to reject Professor Ken Muir’s review’s key recommendation to split the Scottish Qualification Authority’s accreditation and regulation functions - and exams and assessment reform looks set to reduce the reliance on high-stakes exams as the key form of qualifications assessment while ensuring that they still play a key role. On this, the education secretary said: “I think the system we have in place right now is a good one.”
The significance of rejoining Timss and Pirls education surveys
There are, however, interesting points of departure, and new priorities. In the launch of the new Programme for Government, we were promised by 2026 the development of a funded early learning and childcare offer for one- and two-year-olds, the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into law and a “more agile and responsive” skills system.
One of the most significant breaks in continuity, however, is the announcement that Scotland is to rejoin the Trends in International Mathematics and Science (Timss) and Progress in International Reading Literacy (Pirls) international education studies (often crassly referred to as “league tables”).
This, the education secretary says, is to “increase the provision of internationally comparable data on Scotland’s education performance” and to hold her accountable.
It is a very welcome decision, as these surveys should never have been left in the first place. Despite Ms Gilruth’s insistence that the Scottish government left these studies because we were reforming qualifications at the time, Tes Scotland reported that it was, in fact, largely related to the perceived financial cost of membership at the time of that decision in 2010.
Professor Lindsay Paterson has called Scottish education a “data desert”, and he is right. We need much greater transparency in Scottish education so that full consideration of what is happening in schools can be gleaned. However, the next time Scotland will be able to join these surveys is 2028 - which is following the next Holyrood elections and may well be after the current cabinet’s time in office. It is also far too long for Scottish education to wait for more robust data to be available to it.
That said, it will be positive if the decision to rejoin the surveys is part of a wider change in approach to transparency and data. It would be a refreshing break from the approach of her predecessors.
There are a couple of things that can begin immediately: the re-establishment of an internal education survey, such as the scrapped Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy and the commissioning of research into the impact of “lost learning” during the pandemic. Anything less means this is a commitment to data that cannot bring any change until the end of this decade.
The new education secretary has an incredible task of leading Scottish education - and with it the hopes, aspirations and life chances of young people - into a new era. We all should wish her well.
Barry Black is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Glasgow. He is a former Scottish Labour candidate, and former adviser on education policy to the party. He tweets @BarryBlackNE
