A member of the expert panel leading a review of Scottish education - which was launched yesterday - has spelled out seven key areas for improvement.
Professor Walter Humes praised the “dedication of the vast majority of Scottish teachers”, but argued that several deep-rooted problems mitigated against their best efforts.
He also argued that a silver lining of Covid was that there is “now much greater critical attention directed at those who run the [education] system”.
Background: National consultation on Scottish education is launched
More from SSTA congress: Call to end ‘dictating from the top’ in Scottish education
More from Walter Humes: Scottish education bureaucracy is alive - but not well
News editor’s view: Let’s put an end to jargon-ridden language in education
Also this week: 6 essentials for school leaders in time of Covid flux
Professor Humes, in an address to the annual congress of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA), in Glasgow, spelled out seven areas that had led to Scottish education underperforming. He had highlighted these before, in a 2018 article, and today looked at what progress had been made since then.
Professor Humes’ seven barriers are:
1. Failure to learn from the past
Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) was “introduced without taking sufficient account of earlier thinking on curriculum development”.
Professor Humes cited the work of Lawrence Stenhouse as an example: “One of Stenhouse’s key principles was that there can be no effective curriculum development without teacher development.
“There is now greater recognition of this [in Scotland]. Mark Priestley’s work on teacher involvement in curriculum making and the importance of teacher agency has made a valuable contribution.”
2. Poor political leadership
“We have had no fewer than 10 Cabinet secretaries for education since devolution,” said Professor Humes. “That raises problems of policy continuity as each newcomer tries to establish their presence by launching new initiatives.
“The present Cabinet secretary [Shirley-Anne Somerville] has only been in post for a few months so it would be premature to pass judgement on her contribution.”
3. A complacent and self-regarding policy community
“I have been writing about the leadership class in Scottish education for decades and suggesting that it has encouraged a conformist and risk-averse culture,” said Professor Humes.
He added that “the policy community is perhaps a little less complacent than it used to be, but the informal networks of the major players continue to operate and will be used to defend their positions”.
4. Lack of up-to-date independent data
“This has been a recurring theme in [fellow education academic] Lindsay Paterson’s work”, said Professor Humes. “The charge is sometimes made that government fears systematic data collection because it may make it harder to defend its record.”
He added that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - whose review in June of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence led to the review team of which Professor Humes is a member - had emphasised “the importance of longitudinal data in order to carry out proper evaluations and regular reviews of the system”.
5. Defensive and protectionist professional attitudes
Professor Humes said he had “long held the view that professionalism is an ambivalent concept, containing elements of both public service and self-interest, perhaps most evident in the legal profession”, adding: “I think it’s a concept that needs to be interrogated, not assumed to be a self-evident good.”
6. Boastful and sentimental language
“Boasting is now the default position of most public bodies, not just in education - just look at their websites and their absurdly grandiose mission and vision statements,” said Professor Humes. “This one will be hard to shift as it is a reflection of how far the world of public relations has taken over management thinking.”
7. A deep vein of anti-intellectualism
This, said Professor Humes, “was an ironic comment on the academic community”, which had “too often colluded in the shallow discourse and intellectual evasions of government”. Addressing this in Scotland remains “a work in progress”.
The main aims of the review launched yesterday - which is led by Professor Ken Muir, former chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, and is due to report back in January - is to make recommendations on what should replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and how curriculum and inspection body Education Scotland should be reformed.
“Restoring public and professional trust and confidence is not easy and will not be achieved simply by rebadging existing agencies,” said Professor Humes. “There are difficult questions to do with the overall distribution of power in Scottish education, the challenge of winning the hearts and minds of the teaching force for reform proposals, and the role of other agencies which are critical to the quality of what goes on in schools, most notably the local authorities.
“My own view is that, as well as responding to the remit we have been set, we need to set a longer-term agenda for action.”
Professor Humes concluded by emphasising that teachers in Scotland are held in high regard.
“Although this is a testing time for Scottish education, pupils and parents continue to pay tribute to the dedication of the vast majority of Scottish teachers,” he said.
“One good thing to emerge from the current difficulties is that there is now much greater critical attention directed at those who run the system, whether as politicians, government officials, or chief executives of national organisations. There is also greater awareness of how bureaucratic institutions can be used to defend existing power bases rather than to encourage innovation and experiment.
“The ‘iron cage’ of educational bureaucracy is unlikely to be completely dismantled, but the locks and chains which protect it are less secure than in the past. Classroom teachers have a vital part to play in this process.”
