Report card on Scottish education is missing key context

Oh no, I meant to say that candidates receiving blank results emails from the SQA has “created a crisis of confidence for Scottish education ... the biggest failure, and threat to the credibility, of the Scottish education system in living memory”.

Oh wait, no, I didn’t mean to say that either. Because the first is the verdict of James Scotland, in the British Journal of Educational Studies in the February 1982 edition, in an article entitled, “Scottish Education, 1952-1982”, which it bemoaned, while the second is a quote from David Raffe, Cathy Howieson and Teresa Tinklin in a paper from a 2002 article in The Journal of Education Policy quoting the Scottish Parliament’s report in the “Higher Still” fiasco.

What has not appeared to change is the enthusiasm for belittling, decrying and generally panicking about the state of Scottish education.

READ MORE: Inside Scotland’s disturbing far-right groups since English riots

This year’s exam result analysis is … meh. The way the SQA system works, there was always going to be a restorative in the pass marks as this was the first full year of examinations and the body is looking to reset a status quo disrupted by teacher-led marking and Covid exam arrangements.

Yes, the attainment gap widened a little (15.6% in 2023, 17.2% this year, a return almost exactly to the pre-Covid 2019 number of 16.9%). Considering that relative poverty is 24% pretty consistently in Scotland over the four years of this decade, what this tells you is ... poverty is really hard to solve and schools are pretty static.

That’s hardly a surprise. That 1982 article talks about “the fundamental conservatism of most Scottish teachers has remained proof against the winds of change. Certainly traditional methods have died hard”. Plus ça change.

Lord knows there is much work to be done. The SQA is to be replaced in two years hence, but the consultation process once again omits the opinions of classroom teachers from taking part. Einstein’s definition of madness being to repeat the same actions and expect different results springs to mind.

That being said, another thinker never short of an aphorism springs to mind in Oscar Wilde. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” should be engraved on every Scottish school door.

It is not perfect. But it tries. Even the OECD said “achievement levels spread relatively equally, Scottish students are ‘resilient’, migrant students do well, and gender gaps not as wide as in many systems …” despite including a raft of measures to improve going forward.

Oh, by the way, it also noted Scottish performance in mathematics and reading dropped sharply before CfE was implemented.

Perhaps our staff, our young people and our society would be better if we focused more on what our schools do well – just look over the Border to see what a bad education system looks like.

Yes, we need an industrial strategy which includes education. But we also need to resist these persistent murmurings about ending free education for our school leavers. That ambition – that education is a right, not a privilege – is a noble Scottish tradition and needs to be cherished. It must not be sacrificed to the market gods.

There are two sides to this argument. The first is that taking away free tuition is morally reprehensible, the second is that it is economically illiterate. What should be clear to everyone is that we need problem solvers, creative thinkers, global citizens capable of adapting to new skills and emerging technologies while working independently and as part of teams. We do not need rote learning and fact acquisition.

That way lies obsolescence, economic disaster and replacement by AI. Take your pick as to which argument is more persuasive – the morality or the pragmatism – but either way, you should be spending big on education, not sowing class division in a society already marked by that particular mark of Cain like branding through a stick of rock.

James Scotland concluded his article with an analysis and a warning. “Extensive devolution and equalisation has resulted in improved relations among teachers, inspectors, lecturers and administrators… As the state’s money runs short, however, the limits of democracy are edging into view.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Peter Newman

via email

I’M one of these folk that has skin that is white in colour. So what’s the big deal about that, I hear you cry? Well, I feel comfortable walking about any streets throughout Britain knowing that I’m not going to get any antagonism from anybody, purely because of my appearance.

Let’s update this, though, to this last bloody awful week. If I happened to innocently pass by the mayhem inflicted on several English towns and cities and one of the extreme right-wing rioters clocked me, what would the reaction be? Well, I’m white, so my presence just wouldn’t register at all. If I was the only black or brown person, though, that appeared out of the blue among the white, raging, baying, effectively pitchfork-wielding mob, well, I would well and truly be shitting myself!

(Image: James Speakman)

So the point I’m making is? Recent events are definitely not just about too many folk coming to the UK from other countries. Generally, I have heard of zero antagonism directed towards those that have come to the UK from Ukraine or Eastern Europe. So why might that be? Oh, silly me, they all have the pale complexion I have.

That clearly makes them alright, Jack!

I 100% agree with Humza Yousaf, who stated: “This pogrom against Muslims and people of colour is going to cost lives unless these far-right thugs are stopped.” To make it worse, far-right politicians from Reform UK and the Tories have had the temerity to indulge in the myth of a “two-tier” policing system, favouring Muslim and black protesters, to stir up anger among the rioters against the police.

They are seriously having a laugh! Scotland’s very own Aamer Anwar – who has represented loads of people of colour that have been detrimentally affected by what many consider has been a two-tier policing system for decades now (and definitely not one favouring folk of colour!) – will most certainly beg to differ!

The pitchfork-wielding mob now intend to descend on Glasgow on September 7.

Pro-independence groups are being urged to turn out on that day to show a united front against racism and Islamophobia. I totally understand the sentiment behind this but I’m sorry, I’ve got seriously bad vibes how events could pan out on that day through no fault of the counter-protesters.

Remember, truth has totally gone out of the window nowadays and before we know it the English right-wing media will somehow manage to totally twist events on that day to drag the counter-protesters down among the mire of the mob. They have been trying their best to do that in England up until now. Also, I fear for the significant South Asian community of Glasgow and folk of colour in general. I really hope and pray the polis can protect them all on that extremely ominous day!

So, in reality, this is what “taking back control” is aw aboot!

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

A FEW months ago – in fact the week before the debacle that brought down Humza Yousaf – I wrote a short article for The National about the whole “politicians are all the same” nonsense (that you mainly hear from folk who imbibe too much Daily Mail vapour) and how the then First Minister, and many others within the SNP, really bucked that notion.

(Image: ANDY BUCHANAN)

I was heartbroken and sick to my stomach on July 5 to see so many really good SNP MPs washed away in the anti-Tory tide and the sheer weariness and (let’s be polite) lack of sophistication and awareness of the electorate.

And don’t get me started on the white-hot anger at the supposedly indy-supporting crowd who decided it wasn’t worth the shoe leather because they were going to wait for the Holyrood elections.

Listening to extracts from the very moving interview at the Edinburgh Fringe only solidified that notion. Former first minister Humza Yousaf talked about the safety of his family amid the vile anti-Muslim violence that erupted after years of being stoked by the likes of Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman – not to mention out and out thugs like Tommy Robinson – enjoying the chaos from the safety of sunny Cyprus. Yousaf also spoke openly about political mistakes in a way we are really unused to in modern politics.

But there is a difficulty here. When we look at the party that won big in the last General Election, it’s made up of people who (like the Tories) have never accepted responsibility for their mistakes – and some are the kinds of mistakes that would give decent people nightmares. I think, for example, of the Blairite warmonger Douglas Alexander, now happily ensconced in his new seat in East Lothian.

Labour have a leader who boasted about using nukes, entirely ignored Scotland until the election was called, has shown disdain for his own longest-serving black woman MP, failed to call for a ceasefire in Gaza when it might have mattered, etc, etc, etc, but who now has a huge majority based on – in real terms – the kneejerk reaction of a worn-out public – those few who bothered to vote, that is.

READ MORE: Scottish far-right ‘will try to use English riots to aid recruitment’

I was a huge fan of Nicola Sturgeon and still am and was and am horrified by the way the prosecution of her husband has been strategically dramatised by an openly anti-Scottish independence media at key political moments. She was someone else I wrote about years ago in this paper admiring – among other things – the woman’s sheer backbone. And – yes – maybe I should stop writing such pieces because it seems to be some kind of jinx …

As someone who will never forgive Alex Salmond for his destructive ego – the way he divided the party, his sucking on the teat of Putin until he was prised off after the invasion of Ukraine and the way he joined Ruth Davidson’s unbridled assault on Sturgeon during Covid – I hope that in John Swinney we have a working combo of the strength and intelligence of Sturgeon and the kindness, honesty and humility of Yousaf. Fingers crossed.

Most of all, I wish for the SNP and all in the indy movement to get that message that other parties seem to have worked out – support your own. Don’t wait for things to be flawless. Leave the knocking and mocking of independence to the media, they don’t need help from those who are demanding of perfection from their representatives.

It’s almost like some folk have become addicted to a kind of underdog status and when Westminster succeeded in stymying a second independence referendum, the foot soldiers became inpatient with those who carried leadership responsibility on their shoulders. It happens.

Finally, I’d say – to all those hanging their heads, wringing their hands and wanting to tear things apart because of the truly sad outcome of the last election – think carefully to where Labour were after the 2019 Boris Johnson landslide.

Yes, there is work to do, but let’s hold our nerve.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh