The Scottish Conservatives have called for school funding to be more closely linked to “pupil performance”, as an incentive for schools to innovate.
The party has also called for Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) to be scrapped, a bigger role for parents in running schools, more autonomy for schools and better teacher pay and progression.
Following the publication last week of the Muir report on reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Education Scotland, the party also sets out why one of the proposed three new national education bodies should be based in Aberdeen.
The Scottish Conservatives’ education spokesperson, Oliver Mundell, highlighting a new 19-page policy paper on the first day of the party’s conference in Aberdeen, said a “Curriculum for All” should be created, with a focus on “subject-specific knowledge” and better preparation for Higher exams, and with “the early development of digital skills at the core of its approach”.
School funding reforms and a ‘Curriculum for All’
In a foreword, he criticises the Muir report and the Scottish government’s response to it as a collection of “mostly superficial changes, such as rebranding government agencies”, adding: “We do not believe that these changes will be enough to arrest the decline in Scottish education. We need to see a wholesale approach to restore Scottish school traditions for the modern day.”
Mr Mundell said that “if we remain committed to Curriculum for Excellence then this decline will only continue”, and the Tory report says the proposed changes would be “driven by teaching professionals and independent education experts”.
The Conservatives’ paper, Curriculum for All: Restoring world-class Scottish education, sets out its plan to “link central grant funding to improvements in pupil performance”.
It states: “National funding from the Scottish government should be more closely linked to outcomes in pupil performance. This will encourage schools to innovate and implement best practice.”
The paper explains that “a more autonomous school system” would “encourage schools to innovate and focus on the delivery of good teaching and pupil performance”, adding: “We should, therefore, more closely link additional grant funding to outcomes and best practice.
“This will reward those schools who deliver substantive improvements in pupil performance, and encourage other schools to do likewise to receive funding.”
Other recommendations in the Conservatives’ report include that Scotland should:
- “Begin a national conversation around the replacement of Curriculum for Excellence and the development of a Curriculum for All”, as CfE has “led to declining standards in Scottish education due to the lack of importance it places on knowledge, its lack of alignment with Scotland’s traditional exams system and confusing guidance for teachers”.
- “Increase school autonomy and teacher decision making over course content”, as well as giving “parents a greater involvement in the running of schools” and also in the “objective setting” of schools.
- Create an “independent school inspectorate”, set up and staffed by former or seconded teachers.
- Rejoin international education surveys, such as Timss (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study).
- Invest in “a major upgrade” of schools’ IT equipment, and ensure that a “full-fibre connection [is] part of any assessment as to whether a building is considered fit to be a school”.
- Improve teacher pay and progression, including implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Panel on Career Pathways for Teachers and the establishment of the Scottish government’s new “lead teacher” posts before the start of the next school year. Meanwhile, “schools should be able to make additional payments to teachers who hold classes outside of their normal hours”.
- “Expand alternate pathways into the teaching profession”.
- Base one of the new national education bodies outside the Central Belt - Aberdeen is the only place explicitly named - so that the system can “better understand and tackle the issues faced by schools outside of the Central Belt”.
- “Encourage schools to cluster both locally and remotely to widen subject choice.”
- Replace the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) as a means of allocating funding and other support for deprived pupils, as it is “a flawed measure that labels whole communities and schools as deprived”. The government “should replace this with a measure, like low-income households, which allows for the better targeting of support to those pupils and their families who need it most”.
“Scotland’s education system used to rank among the best in the world before the SNP came to power,” Mr Mundell said.
“We should return to the strong, traditional, teacher-led approach that gave so many of us who went to our local school a decent start in life.”
He added: “We want to start a national conversation with teachers and education experts to design a replacement that would restore world-class Scottish education.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish government said that a 2021 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) described CfE as “bold” and “widely supported”.
“Curriculum for Excellence is the right approach for Scotland and it is viewed internationally as an inspiring example of curriculum practice,” the spokesperson said. “Throughout the pandemic, it delivered credible results for our children and young people in the face of exceptional circumstances.
“The breadth of learning delivered by CfE - which helps equip pupils with the knowledge, skills and attributes needed for life in the 21st century - was reflected in the most recent Pisa [Programme for International Student Assessment] global competence assessment, where only two countries achieved a higher average score than Scotland.”
The Scottish Greens, who are in government with the SNP, attacked the Tory plans to scrap CfE.
Education spokesperson Ross Greer said: “These plans would take our schools back to the 1950s at best [and] ignore everything we have learned about child development over the last 70 years, not to mention the effect of technological change.
“The Tories look to have dismissed every one of the OECD’s most important recommendations and ignored entirely the high praise those international experts had for the Curriculum for Excellence.”
