Concerns over the funding of education reform boards highlighted in an exclusive Tes Scotland story yesterday have now been raised in the Scottish Parliament.
We reported how the boards charged with taking forward the reform of Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) have received only a fraction of the funding requested from the Scottish government.
This afternoon education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville was grilled about these issues during an education debate in Parliament.
Following a statement by Ms Somerville highlighting data published in December, which had suggested a partial recovery in literacy and numeracy attainment levels from the significant drop during Covid, Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher homed in on concerns about education reform.
“It’s Groundhog Day: yet another statement where data is stacked against this government that has no meaningful solutions to improve the education and life chances of all children and young people - and questions must be asked over education reform funding,” said Ms Gallacher.
Concerns over funding for education reform
She cited a warning from the board responsible for the new education agency and the independent inspectorate, chaired by Education Scotland’s Gillian Hamilton, that Education Scotland “does not have capacity and/or capability to carry out this additional, very important work”.
Such warnings were contained in communications released to Tes Scotland under a freedom-of-information request, from which Ms Gallacher quoted further: she noted the concerns over ”significant and detrimental impact on some key policy areas”, including the government’s flagship policy to close the “poverty-related attainment gap”.
Addressing the education secretary, Ms Gallacher asked: “How serious is this government about education reform?”
In response, Ms Somerville said: “This is one of the areas where I find it quite incredulous that I’m being attacked by opposition parties.
“Because previously I have always been criticised that too much has been done by staff within the [Scottish Qualifications Authority] and within Education Scotland.
“Now it would appear I’m being criticised for actually not giving those agencies more money to allow more staff to actually be responsible for the reform package.”
Ms Somerville added: “So we will continue to ensure that there is resources within the agencies to carry out the necessary work in here. But we’ll also continue to ensure that the reform process is driven - because I am responsible for it - by the Scottish government and by decisions that I will take to include the reform process that I want to see, which will be radical.”
