The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday December 19 2024 #Education
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Thursday.
00:05My name is Dale Miller.
00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.
00:09I'm joined by our Education Correspondent Callum Ross.
00:13We are less than a week from Christmas now.
00:16The news agenda should be starting to wind down, but it's not to be honest.
00:20It continues to be a busy week as the Scottish and UK Parliaments try to
00:25cram in business to finish the year before they disappear for Christmas as well.
00:31If we look at the front page of today's Scotsman, going in on a fresh rift,
00:37probably the most significant moment so far under a UK Labor government
00:43where Anas Sarwar had to step away and directly criticize the government,
00:48talking about his disappointment at the decision made around no compensation
00:55for WASPI women, which is women of a certain age, pensionable age,
01:01that missed out under the change to the pension age rules.
01:07It's not something we've seen a lot from Anas, but he had spoken before
01:12the general election about his desire to see women in this position
01:17receive compensation.
01:19He'd sort of campaigned for that and quite an embarrassing position for him
01:24and Scottish Labor that the UK Labor government and Sir Keir Starmer have said
01:29that they cannot afford it as a government.
01:32There'll be more to play out there.
01:33Sir Keir Starmer's getting quizzed for the final time before Christmas later today,
01:40and I would expect we'll hear more from him on that issue.
01:43Callum, there's also a story on that front page, re-education, specifically around
01:49this Teaching Centre of Excellence.
01:51It was something that was promised, but now we know where it's going to be.
01:55That's right, Dale.
01:56It was back in October 2023, so over a year ago, that Jenny Gilruth,
02:01the Education Secretary, announced that she would be establishing
02:06this Centre of Teaching Excellence.
02:09The announcement came at the SNP conference at the time,
02:12the autumn conference.
02:13It kind of took people by surprise a bit, to be honest.
02:17There wasn't really any build-up to it.
02:18There was no consultation.
02:20People weren't really sort of sure what it was all about
02:23and how it kind of fitted with the wider reform of Scottish education.
02:30And to be honest, we've not really heard a lot about it since then,
02:34and a lot of those questions still exist, but it does seem to now be happening.
02:39Jenny Gilruth announced in Holyrood yesterday that it was going to be hosted
02:44by Glasgow University.
02:46It has won the sort of race to host it.
02:49Apparently, there were other universities bidding.
02:53Sounds like it will be up and running in the next sort of two or three months or so,
02:58January, February, March time.
03:03Budget, I mean, I dug out some kind of government papers relating to the tender.
03:08It looks like the budget is sort of between four and five million pounds
03:13for the first two years.
03:15It's not really clear if it's going to be a sort of long-term sort of project.
03:19These papers suggest it's been envisaged initially for four years,
03:24but I guess with anything like this, it kind of depends how successful it is.
03:28There'll be reviews and everything else to see if it's working.
03:33And the kind of aim is to help teachers, you know, engage in research and evidence
03:40and kind of be at the sort of cutting edge of things,
03:42become world leaders really in teaching.
03:47And I guess the hope would be that if they do that,
03:51kind of using the latest thinking, new techniques, everything else,
03:55then young people can only benefit.
03:58But as I said, there's still a bit of a lack of detail around, you know, the plans.
04:06Alan, putting your analytical hat on, you've written a lot about the problems,
04:09about school violence, antisocial behaviour,
04:14about issues around teacher supply and numbers, et cetera.
04:20Is this going to make a difference,
04:23or is it more that the government's trying to be seen to make a difference there?
04:27You know, what's your view on that?
04:30Really don't know, to be honest.
04:32I mean, Jenny Gauru is a former teacher, of course.
04:37She reminds us of this a lot.
04:41And I think she likes the idea of putting, you know, teachers at the heart of things.
04:46And obviously, teachers have a key role to play in resolving some of these issues.
04:51But whether, you know, I think there is a sort of question mark
04:55over whether this is exactly where our money should be going at the moment
04:58and whether it will deliver the outcome, comes Jenny Gauru's hopes.
05:02But I guess we kind of just need to wait and see on that front.
05:06Kel, I'm just on practical ideas around fixing some of the problems
05:12that we know exist currently with the education system.
05:15Reform Scotland, it's a think tank.
05:17There's a new report out, and it does put forward some proposals
05:22for secondary school and how they think this is going to work.
05:27That's right, Dale.
05:27It's the Commission on School Reform, which is set up by Reform Scotland think tank.
05:34Yeah, obviously, the backdrop, as you mentioned, you know,
05:37there's ongoing concerns about deteriorating pupil behaviour and attendance,
05:42particularly since the COVID pandemic and the disruption to education.
05:48Then this report kind of links those issues to problems with exams
05:52and the timetable in schools, particularly around S4, so National 5 pupils.
06:00I mean, it's a long report, but it basically says that the kind of study leave
06:05and exam period at S4 is far too long.
06:08These pupils are kind of off, effectively off.
06:12They're not in classes for a long period, and then they come back,
06:15and then they're almost immediately kind of off on their summer holidays.
06:19And there's a big sort of lack of disruption to the momentum there,
06:23basically, which affects attendance and concentration.
06:27So this report kind of suggests holding the National 5 exams before the Easter holidays
06:34and then having these S4 pupils after the Easter holidays come back
06:39and kind of go straight into their higher courses.
06:41So it would almost be an extra term of higher.
06:46And as I said, this Commission on School Reform suggests that this would kind of resolve
06:52some of the issues around the kind of lack of momentum at that kind of age group and period.
06:58But as I said, this is just a proposal.
07:03The government's already kind of responded to the Hayward Review
07:05on the future of Scottish qualification.
07:08So I'm not sure there's a great likelihood of this being taken forward at this stage,
07:12but it certainly feeds into the debate.
07:15And I'll do note that the Scottish Government response attached to that story that came in last night.
07:21Sort of gave the indication that the Scottish Government wasn't probably going to pick up
07:27and embrace all the ideas in the report.
07:28But it makes for interesting reading,
07:31I think, looking outside the box at solutions for what's happening with the system.
07:36You can read those stories from Callum, including the latest on the Waspie Women decision
07:42and the rift between the labour camps at Scotsman.com.
07:46Look for either politics or education in the navigation bar.
07:49That'll get you to the stories that we've been talking about.
07:52Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky.
07:57And please go out and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow.
08:00Thanks for joining us.