Ross Martin and Geoff Mawdsley: Lessons must be learnt to create a better education system

If Scotland is to ensure schools are producing pupils capable of building a better society, we need to learn from the best around

WE LIVE in an increasingly competitive global economy. At the same time, our society faces a range of difficult challenges. Education is universally regarded as having a vital role to play in equipping Scotland to face these challenges.

Opinions differ on how well Scottish education performs. However, no-one can doubt that it needs to improve if it is to meet the country’s present and future needs. This is why Reform Scotland and the Centre for Scottish Public Policy (CSPP) have jointly created the Commission on School Reform.

Everyone agrees on the importance of education and the need to keep on improving – standing still is simply not an option in an ever-changing world. The Commission on School Reform has been established to assist the mature and reflective inquiry as to what aspects of the current school system should continue to be supported and celebrated. We also wish to identify where practice can be better, learning lessons from home and abroad.

The make-up of the commission reflects these aims, covering a wide spectrum of interests in Scotland’s school system from practitioners to policy makers; politicians to parents; education managers and representatives from a wide range of other interest groups. It is, however, from the submission of evidence that the commission will gain its strength, and its real purpose.

Indeed, through the taking of evidence from those directly involved in the day-to-day design, development and delivery of school education in Scotland – including pupils past and present – the commission will be seeking to learn about the little things that matter as well as identifying any big changes that are required.

The Commission will:

• Form a fair and objective view of Scotland’s educational performance compared with what is provided elsewhere;

• Consider the challenges that Scottish education is likely to face in the next 50 years and how likely it is to meet them;

• Identify any problems with the current school system in Scotland and try to analyse the root causes of them;

• Develop proposals that will enable young people, whatever their background, to fulfil their potential and meet the unprecedented challenges of the modern world.

In meeting these objectives, the Commission wishes to consider key themes such as standards within Scottish education – how we compare with other countries – as well as whether our system will meet the future needs of society and the economy; diversity within the Scottish school system; the governance structures of schools and support provided; how quality is assured and the incentives or obstacles to improve; funding; and the social factors which affect education.

All over the world, governments feel strongly impelled to invest in education and have very high expectations of the likely returns. There is every indication that public opinion supports their view, including here in Scotland.

In the course of its work, the Commission will look at the school systems of other comparable countries to establish how their achievements and structures compare with our own. And it will consider whether the measures used in international comparisons provide a good guide to the ability of different systems to equip young people for life in the 21st century.

In the developed world, educational expectations are generally expressed in economic terms. Extending the normal period of education, raising standards of performance and admitting an increasing proportion of the age cohort into further and higher education are held to increase the prospects of sustainable economic growth, leading to greater national prosperity.

In particular, there is a widespread belief that improved education will raise levels of skill, facilitate success in the global knowledge economy and foster innovation and creativity. This creation of a “knowledge economy” is seen as the prerequisite of continuing prosperity for high-wage societies in a world where rapidly emerging economies, such as those of China and India, are better placed to compete on price and scale of production.

These economies are also investing heavily in education. Recent years have seen an exponential growth in higher education in such countries, building on earlier success in consolidating effective systems of primary and secondary education (at least for certain sections of the population).

The spectacular success of some Chinese education systems, such as that of Shanghai, in recent PISA assessments (OECD Programme for International Student Assessment) suggests that these countries may soon be able to compete very effectively in terms of innovation and creativity, thus calling into question the fact that developed countries have a lead in such areas although no longer being predominant in relation to basic and medium-level skills.

Although the explicit motivation for investing in education may appear to be economic, it is important to recognise that our ambition is wider. Scotland is not the only country to be concerned about the gap in attainment between young people from affluent backgrounds and those from deprived circumstances. Encouraging social mobility is an objective widely shared.

More fundamentally, the history of the last century suggests that it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain civilised social values in circumstances of economic failure. Those who are concerned primarily with the social or intellectual benefits of education may have to accept that education for economic success is an essential part of their objectives also.

Furthermore, there is a widespread (and probably growing) feeling that tackling the complex issues currently facing human society as a whole, such as environmental sustainability, calls for better decision-making and that, in a democratic setting at least, improvement is dependent on raising levels of understanding among citizens.

The link between educational improvement and better-informed and more effective democratic processes may be both indirect and long-term, but it clearly underpins the emphasis placed on citizenship in the educational mission statements of many countries, including Scotland.

Finally, education is felt to make an important contribution to the capacity of the individual to live a fulfilled and psychologically comfortable life in circumstances of rapid and accelerating change.

This is, in effect, a rationale for the purposes of education set out in the Curriculum for Excellence. To flourish in the contemporary world, people need to be successful learners, effective contributors, responsible citizens and confident individuals.

For this to happen here in Scotland, we must ensure that the Curriculum for Excellence is well articulated, that it is properly embedded and that it strengthens the teaching profession.

The school building programme has made a significant difference to the education environment and the McCrone pay settlement has improved the lot of teachers. The Curriculum for Excellence provides the autonomous ability of the profession, at the appropriate level, to ensure that each and every school is attuned to the needs, aims and aspirations of the community of interest it seeks to serve.

The Commission on School Reform is determined to identify what remaining barriers exist to the pursuit of excellence for all, and to propose policy solutions for considered political, democratic debate. Scotland can do better, and we urge anyone with a contribution to make to help us show how.

• Ross Martin is policy director of CSPP and Geoff Mawdsley is director of Reform Scotland. Evidence should arrive by no later than Monday, 30 April. Responses should be no more than six sides of A4 in length and, preferably, should be e-mailed in Microsoft Word format to [email protected]