Des McNulty: Putting a Scots stamp on education reform

In A speech last week launching his party’s local government manifesto, David Cameron criticised Scotland’s “old school, centralising, power-hoarding establishment”. Coming from an Old Etonian who heads a Cabinet full of the products of exclusive private schools, his comments were roundly and justifiably attacked. Nevertheless, it is worth reflecting on what Cameron had to say on the school system.

In England, schools are being levered into applying for academy status, with the promise that once they opt out of local authority control they will have the freedom to make their own decisions about the curriculum, teachers’ pay, the length of the school day and how they use resources allocated to them.

The “independent state sector” also includes new providers encouraged to compete for pupils with existing schools.

Cameron argued that the Westminster government’s approach is creating choice and freedoms, contrasting this with a monopoly provider approach in Scotland. But increased autonomy for “independent state schools” involves a fundamental shift in power between levels of government. Central government is taking on the roles of procurement and regulation. Local government is losing its role of managing education provision to meet the needs of an area as a whole – and without any compensating role of representing and articulating the needs of its residents.

In Scotland, ministers have tied their hands behind their backs. Financial levers that might have allowed them to drive forward change in the school sector have been surrendered through the Concordat, which bought local governments’ agreement to a council tax freeze in exchange for removing ring-fenced budgets. As a result, education budgets and teacher numbers have been squeezed as the sector takes its share of council cutbacks.

This abdication of power is unfortunate, as reform of the management of education in Scotland is long overdue. Thirty-two education authorities, ranging in size from Glasgow to Clackmannanshire, is costly and unwieldy. No party favours a local government reorganisation, given the disruption that might cause, but the number of education directorates could be reduced.

Adjacent authorities could, for example, combine their functions while retaining existing legal responsibilities.

With a population of just over five million, there is a range of options we ought to be debating. A radical approach would be to have a single education directorate and move schools away from direct local authority responsibility. The directorate would be answerable to ministers, but also accountable to local communities through regional boards with majority councillor representation.

Whatever solution we adopt needs to deliver effectiveness and efficiency.

David Cameron cited the transformation of results at Hackney’s Mossbourne Academy to justify removing schools from council control. Leaving council control does not guarantee better results, however. There are good and bad academies, just as there are better and worse run local authority schools.

Research suggests the key determinant of success is the quality of management and leadership of the school, not whether it is under council control.

But are reforms south of the border really about “freedom” or a particular version of it? In advocating the English reforms, Cameron dressed them up in language tinged with nostalgia: pupils who “stand up when their teacher walks in the room”, discipline, rigorous standards, hard subjects and “sports where children can learn what it is to succeed and fail”. Such references have a potent appeal to many parents. In the same vein, Michael Gove recently announced changes to the examinations system in England that will hand control of A levels to the top universities. The result would be an abandonment of developing core and learning skills in favour of subject knowledge tested in written examinations.

Thankfully, Scotland has not been seduced by nostalgia. There is broad support for the objectives of the Curriculum for Excellence, even if its advocates have oversold it as a panacea for every perceived shortcoming of our education system. But poor project management and the government’s failure to win over teachers have delayed implementation and led to reform being watered down.

Now educational experts and employers increasingly doubt whether this reform will rectify the key problems it was intended to address: the domination of single subject learning, overcrowding of the curriculum, inflexibility of the timetable in secondary schools, lack of employability skills amongst too many school leavers and spoon-feeding to boost exam performance rather than developing learning skills.

We need reform – we can’t afford to resist for fear of the unknown or because diversity is tainted as an English approach. In Scotland, education is seen as a public good. That will remain our foundation. But where the system is not working well, we should encourage innovation. The current entitlement to a pupil plan at the end of S3, which supposedly links into further education and modern apprenticeships for pupils expecting to leave school at 16, has proved inadequate.

The number of young people leaving school without qualifications or with poor attainment is a huge challenge. Schools as presently run do not appear to be meeting the needs of the many young people who want to start early down a vocational path or who need help to acquire employment linked skills. If colleges or social enterprises can offer alternative education to pupils from the age of 14 or 15 that better meets their needs, why should they be prevented from doing so?

Cameron’s argument hinges on competition and freedoms as the drivers of school improvement. In my view, a well-managed, democratically accountable school system is better. But we have been stuck with outdated, rigid structures and it is time to change them. Working with professionals and other stakeholders to take forward policy has been the preferred approach in Scottish education. But if entrenched interests continually block or attempt to dilute reform that is in pupils’ interests, the system will not move forward.

We have to make space for innovation. If the current system is failing to deliver what is needed for some pupils there is no reason why education authorities should not be able to procure alternative provision subject to strict controls on the type of bodies that would be allowed to manage school-age education. Yes, we don’t want what Cameron is recommending.

But that’s no excuse for limiting reform to the Curriculum for Excellence.

l Des McNulty is a former Labour MSP and education spokesman