A landmark in Scottish education reform is being reached today.
A bill due to go to a final vote in the Scottish Parliament this evening should pave the way for the Scottish Qualifications Authority to be replaced by a new body, Qualifications Scotland, later this year.
It also aims to create a new office of His Majesty’s chief inspector of education in Scotland.
‘Challenges’ to education reform
The path to this point has not always been smooth. In April, for example, Tes Scotland reported that the education reform programme was being hit by “challenges”, including “limited finance, staff resource, constrained timescales and expectations”, according to minutes of the board tasked with overseeing the changes.
Labour MSPs have threatened to vote against the Education (Scotland) Bill, claiming that it would not lead to “genuine reform” in its current form.
Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy’s bid for the bill to establish a standalone body called Curriculum Scotland was voted down by MSPs late yesterday.
Education secretary Jenny Gilruth had argued that curriculum improvements were already well underway, led by Education Scotland.
Ms Gilruth said: “I do not believe there are sufficient advantages to establishing a new standalone curriculum body in legislation and the expense that will incur, when we already have a national education agency being refocused on curriculum improvement and supporting implementation across the system.”
Meanwhile, the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ education spokesperson, Willie Rennie, said that he had secured significant changes to the bill, such as “improvements to how Qualifications Scotland assures quality, including an independent review, an annual compliance report, and a new independent expert group to advise on standards”.
Another change involves timetables and mechanisms designed to “ensure that if ministers conclude that further legislation is needed, they must bring forward changes within a year or explain to Parliament why they are not acting”, he added.
Mr Rennie said: “The scandal over this year’s Higher history exam showed how unsatisfactory it is that the SQA inspects itself with its quality-assurance arrangements. I’ve worked constructively with the cabinet secretary to build a stronger system that fixes this and lays the groundwork for lasting reform.”
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