What are pupils’ biggest priorities in education? That was the question tackled in one of a series of education events at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Seven young people, all members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, outlined their priorities. They included:
1. Teachers should receive better training in LGBT issues.
2. There should be an overhaul of the Scottish exam system’s “post-results service”, reverting to something similar to the old appeals process that was scrapped in 2014.
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3. Subjects studied at school should be more relevant to students’ lives, so that, for example, learning about taxation becomes an integral part of maths.
4. In an ideal world, said one speaker, “we would just get rid of punishment” in schools, and adopt a “more holistic approach”. At the moment, he said, the enforcement of school uniform rules, for example, unfairly punished pupils who live in poverty.
5. Pupils should have more choice in the topics they study within a particular subject.
6. The standard of personal and social education (PSE) must be improved. At the moment it varies wildly, said one speaker, and is “abysmal” in some schools.
7. Students must be given a stronger voice in schools. Currently, said one speaker, many pupil councils merely pay lip service to the idea of “student voice” and have very little actual influence in schools.
This afternoon’s event was part of EduMod, which is believed to mark the first time that the Edinburgh Fringe has had a series of events with such a specific focus on education. The title is an amalgam of “education” and “mòd”, taken from the Gaelic for “assembly” but usually associated with the annual festival of Scottish culture, music, language and art.
