Genuine free-thinking is as rare in Scottish education as elsewhere in the public or civic heartlands of Scottish life. Despite ample evidence of declining standards in literacy, numeracy and in terms of international comparisons, Scotland’s educational establishment instinctively and complacently dismisses all criticism. The system knows best and external critics are typically assumed to be acting in bad faith. Reform is for other places.
Next week The Times will publish the latest league tables detailing secondary school performance. These will show that success in examinations is strongly correlated with catchment area affluence. Breaking this link is a great “levelling-up” challenge and one made more difficult by real-terms cuts in education and school budgets.
But affluence alone does not explain all the differences between schools. Is it really a coincidence that Jordanhill, in Glasgow, is regularly deemed Scotland’s top-performing state school while also being the only secondary school in Scotland operating outwith local government control? Head teachers complain they remain underpowered and subject to often counterproductive local authority interference. The Curriculum for Excellence, introduced a dozen years ago, was supposed to set teachers free. Increasingly, however, it has become bogged down in technocratic detail.
Stung by opposition criticism, the government asked the OECD to review Scottish education, and while the OECD found much that was healthy — notably a broad-based curriculum which emphasises skills as well as knowledge — it also cautioned that Scottish education suffers from bureaucratic overload. And what a bureaucracy it is: Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority are considered so unfit for purpose they are to be abolished and replaced.
While rightly prizing the comprehensive ideal, Scottish education is also increasingly hidebound and conservative. Even when the government has tentatively suggested reform, these changes have been watered down — or simply abandoned — when opposed by the teaching unions and local authorities. Here, the contrast between Scottish and English education is remarkable.
Over nearly 40 years, successive education secretaries in England have pushed for reform. Kenneth Baker’s reforms in turn informed Tony Blair’s introduction of academy-status schools and Michael Gove’s free schools. A centralised curriculum was paired with decentralised funding within an atmosphere which prized innovation.
English schools have been empowered at the expense of the bureaucracy. Not everything in England is blooming but a diversified approach at least allows the opportunity to see what works best in specific local circumstances. Nothing of that sort is currently permitted in Scotland.
The next challenge is retooling education for the future. The value of National 4 and National 5 examinations in an era when most pupils stay on at school to sit Highers is, at best, questionable. Less time cramming for outdated exams could create more space for innovative learning.
Being open to alternative approaches and to criticism is a sign of strength, not weakness, and the knee-jerk reaction to any suggestion that policy and outcomes could be improved is correspondingly a mark of weakness, not strength. By that measure, Scottish education is weaker than anyone would like.
