Minister criticised over Swedish schools visit

Published on Thursday 11 March 2010 21:35

PLANS for Scotland to examine the Swedish model of running schools were criticised by MSPs as education minister Michael Russell prepares for a fact-finding mission there.

Mr Russell is flying to Finland on Sunday to visit a secondary school and will then fly to Stockholm to examine how the country's education system works.

He is making the trip after publicly declaring he would welcome suggestions from Scotland's local authorities on alternative ways to run schools.

That came after East Lothian Council published plans to create a cluster of schools in a charitable trust at arm's length from local authority control.

However, the Scottish Parliament heard yesterday that the performance of Swedish pupils has fallen since the 1990s, based on international comparisons. Jeremy Purvis, Liberal Democrat finance spokesman, read the statistic from a 2009 Swedish government report.

He said myths were being discussed as part of the debate and said the paper showed attainment levels had gone down in some areas, most notably in maths, science and reading comprehension.

But Elizabeth Smith, Conservative schools spokeswoman, backed the Swedish model, saying it was time for radical change.

Warning that around 13,000 pupils leave school each year unable to read or write, she said: "If we want standards to go up, we must break the current monopoly the state has over the provision of education … We need to take power away from politicians and start trusting teachers."

However, Des McNulty, Labour's education spokesman, was sceptical.

He said: "The broken promises on class-size reductions, in teacher and support staff numbers, the cuts in school budgets directly attributable to the concordat (between central and local government], momentum lost on replacing crumbling schools buildings, are all the responsibility of the current SNP government.

"I'm not convinced that structural reform will overcome these problems."

After the debate MSPs voted in favour of an amended Conservative motion calling for examination of other European school models.

Meanwhile, at First Minister's Questions, Labour leader Iain Gray pressed Alex Salmond for "reassurance" that the Curriculum for Excellence would be introduced in time for the new school year.

He said the First Minister had "already delayed the new curriculum by a year" and added: "Teachers are telling us that they don't know what is happening."

But Mr Salmond appeared to side-step the question, replying that there was "broad-based support" in the education sector for the changes under Curriculum for Excellence.