 Rwy'n iawn i'n fawr o'r gweithio i ddechrau i ddechrau aensgiliau ac y dyfodol. Rydym i chi'n ddim yn cyfectione unig, rwy'n eisiau bod gydag i ddwyd na'n gyferwyddiol oherwydd iawnnig iawnnig i gydag i ddyddai'r cystafoli sydd gennych?豁o, roedd ni wedi'n rhoi arryetofer ac yn meddwlwg mor gweithio aethryd. Daith yn ddigidol yng nghymru ar gweithio ac mae'n garaod i'n mynd i chi'n gweithio that they have that are relevant to the work on the committee. There is background information on the note from the clerk on paper 1. I'll start by declaring my interest and then we'll go round the table from my left. I have no specific interest to declare other than those that are already declared on my register of interests. I always mean that, so apologies. Thank you, convener. I have no other interest to declare other than what is noted in my register of interests. I have no other interest to declare other than what is noted in my register of interests. Member of the Scottish Social Services Council and the Northlandshire Council. I have no other interest to declare other than what is already declared on my register of interests. And I have no other interest to declare other than what is in my register of interests. I have no other interest to declare other than what is already contained in the register of The one thing I would want to note was my membership of the General Teaching Council. For the three members that are absent, I'm sure that they'll be picked up at the next meeting of the committee. The second item on the agenda is the most important one, the choice of the convener. The procedure is explained in paper 2 and the Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish National Party are eligible for nomination as convener of the committee. I understand that James Dorman is the party's nominee for this post. Do we all agree that James Dorman is our convener? Agreed? In that case, James, congratulations, and if I can advocate the chair and hand across to you for the remainder of the session. Thank you, Colin. Item 3 on the agenda is the choice of deputy convener. At this point, I'd like to thank all the members of the committee for agreeing my nomination as convener of the Education and Skills Committee. I very much look forward to working with you all in this role and to working well collectively on the important subjects that we will need to address over the next five years. Before I move on to the next item of business, I'd like to briefly pay tribute to my predecessor in this role, Stuart Maxwell. Stuart was and is a close friend and colleague of mine. I had the pleasure to work for him for a number of years. I know just how committed he was to education. As a substitute member of the committee, I saw for myself the good job he did as convener. I have big shoes to fill in that role. I also would like to thank all the other members of the former committee for their excellent service. The committee's next task is to choose a deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Labour Party are eligible for nomination as deputy convener of this committee. I understand that Johann Lamont is the party's nominee for this post. Do we agree to choose Johann Lamont as a deputy convener? I congratulate Johann Lamont on her appointment. I look forward to working with her in particular on her role as deputy convener. The next item of business, item four, is to consider the legacy paper from our previous committee. Legacy papers are a good way for a new committee to find out what work was undertaken by our predecessors and to consider the ideas they put forward for what we might like to undertake. I will open the floor to members shortly, taking one from each party initially perhaps, but I would like to thank the previous committee and I suggest at this stage that we note their ideas and take them into account in the next agenda item and over the coming weeks as we discuss our work programme. I invite members to contribute. Start perhaps with Johann as our deputy convener. I think that there is such a wide range of issues that we can look at. It would be useful to see what skills and interests people in the committee have. I am particularly interested in understanding properly what we mean by the attainment gap, but I do not think that it is just young people who for some reason do not access university but are actually failed much earlier in the education system. Young people have very good skills and very good qualifications who do not manage to achieve the place that they want, but there are also lots of young people who fall off the radar and off-lot earlier than, as a particular interest of mine. Thank you very much, convener. It was a really helpful report, again being an entirely new member as well, to look at the work that was undertaken by the committee in the previous Parliament, so I found the legacy report really helpful. My particular interest in relation to the North East of Scotland, the region that I represent, there is a growing skills gap, particularly in the energy sector, and we have seen no challenges with that. It is looking at what we could do as a committee to look through colleges for their education to help, and trying to get young people into experience and apprenticeships as well to try to meet that. That is one thing that I have a particularly interest in, and I look forward to looking at it as part of the committee. Thank you very much. Does there anybody from the SNP that would like to comment at this stage? Yes. My particular interest is in sharing good practice across colleges. Each college has its own autonomy and how they operate, and some colleges are doing things very well, and some perhaps could be doing with that knowledge being shared across the sector. Yesterday in my speech I made reference to North East Scotland College's partnership with RGU, which is one of our great success stories. I would like to see whether people have been brought in to share their good practice and maybe some visits to colleges, which I have been seeing to actually be hitting their targets in terms of attracting people like Joanne Macin, who have traditionally not had access or not been traditionally encouraged into further and higher education, and how other colleges have managed to do that in bridging that gap. I could do that. I will echo a lot of what has been said already. Following on from specifically what is in the paper, the attainment gap is clearly one of the absolute overarching priorities in this Parliament more generally. I think that that is a point of real consensus across the party, so I would definitely like to see that taken up and taken forward. Within that, I have a specific interest around specific learning difficulties and disabilities. For example, looking at how we can better adapt and cater for children with learning difficulties such as ADHD, dyslexia and specific learning difficulties at a specific interest of mine. Beyond that, I think that looking at some of the work that the committee took forward with colleges, again, skilling and re-skilling, and it echoes some of the things that Gillian is saying, but I think that it is more broad and raw, looking at how we equip the workforce for economic changes in the future. As I sort of comically noted yesterday in my speech in the debate, some people accuse me of being paranoid about sky net takeover, but I think that automation and the increasing use of digital technologies in the economy will have a big impact on employment. I think that the way that we re-skill our workforce, not just skill young people, I think is critical importance. Finally, I have a real interest in childcare in early years and just making sure that we do our very best at that earlier stage and right the way through education, so that we help people to be as economically active as possible. Clearly, the legacy document is a quality piece of work. There speaks a hex and members will ask that. However, looking at it specifically, one of the areas that I felt at the previous committee did some good work and a little bit of innovative work was on children and care. I would like to think that this committee would find the time to continue on with that element. I think that there is a lot of work still to be done in there. I would also like to think that the education committee might find the opportunities to spend time out in the community at times. I know that there was a number of fact finding visits since someone was done previously, but perhaps the committee from time to time should actually meet in different areas. I know that there is expense and logistics involved in that, but it would be a good exercise in democracy for people in Glasgow, Dundee and so on. I would like to see the education committee meet there at least once in the next session. I would just throw that out as a possible idea, but I would primarily like to see us building on some of the good work that was done around children and care. I would like to echo what was said by Johann Daniel in terms of the attainment gap as a former secondary school teacher. That is a real priority for me. Johann spoke about attainment and what we mean by attainment. That is really important. We often talk about educational jargon in Parliament. When you speak to people in the street, they do not necessarily know what we mean by attainment. It is not necessarily just about qualifications, it is about achievement in school, how we measure that and other contributions that pupils make. In the senior phase, that is something that I am interested in. Having worked for Education Scotland, I am interested in how we use partners such as Education Scotland and the SQA to work with local authorities to close the attainment gap. That is something that I am really interested in. I am excited about this committee. It is very wide-ranging, but my specialist interest is in child protection. I would back up what Colin said about children in care. I think that we did make a lot of progress in the last Parliament. The Parliament made a lot of progress last time around, and I would like to see that continued as well, as well as looking at the wider child protection implications. Thank you very much for that. Clearly, there was quite a lot that came out of that very short discussion. I suspect that we are going to have lots of work to do over the next five years, so I thank the members for their contributions. The next item of business agenda item five is to consider taking or work-programmed discussions that follow in private. It is a common place for committees to have such discussions in private. Are we agreed to do so? Yes. Thank you very much. That then concludes the public part of the meeting. I will wait until the public gallery is cleared. Could be some time.