Leader comment: No talking in class '“ it's time to listen to teachers

teachers and pupils continue to achieve results despite not because of the system.

Despite cross-party support for the initiative and an SNP government which has made the nation’s schools its top priority, all the indications are that things have stagnated or even deteriorated.

Figures published in December showed Scotland had recorded its worst-ever results in the internationally respected Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa).

Those statistics followed the Scottish Government’s own – published earlier in the year – which showed worsening performance in maths.

Now a report by the Scottish Parliament’s education committee has warned urgent work is needed to improve the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) after a survey found two-thirds of teachers lack trust in the body.

As has been the case with CfE from the outset, teachers feel tied up in red tape and besieged by excessive and unclear guidance. The committee’s scrutiny of the public bodies charged with developing and implementing education and skills policy – the SQA, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and Education Scotland – uncovered mounting frustrations among those at the education frontline.

Recommendations for Education Scotland include the need for greater clarity on who is the “decision taker” in different areas of the curriculum. The MSPs also want the agency to address the “lack of measurement and collection of outcome-based data” associated with the start of the curriculum.

Among the report’s recommendations for the SQA is that the quango should focus on ensuring there are no errors in either the production or marking of exams and that markers should be paid the living wage.

The fact that a committee of MSPs feels the need to address either of these issues is a truly worrying indictment.

Indeed the committee’s convener, SNP MSP James Dornan, is being diplomatic when he refers to the findings of the report as “eye-opening”.

For too long Scotland’s education system has been coasting, lurching from one experiment to the next as teachers and pupils continue to achieve results despite – not because of – the system.

For their part, the government has appeared unwilling to listen to those who know best, repeatedly pushing teachers to the brink of industrial action.

That has to stop.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has staked her political reputation on solving the problems of Scotland’s education system, appointing John Swinney, her most able minister, to the brief.

But if Ms Sturgeon is to prevent Scotland falling further behind its international rivals from being her legacy, then her government must begin listening to the nation’s teachers.