 Rwy'n meddwl i'r next item of business, which is a ministerial, a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on education reform update. I will allow a moment or two for front benches to reorganise. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions, I call on Shirley-Anne Somerville, cabinet secretary. I'm grateful for the opportunity to update Parliament on the Scottish Government's education reform and improvement agenda. I'll cover a number of areas today, including our forthcoming national discussion on the vision for Scottish education, the creation of three new national education bodies, the independent review of qualifications and assessment that Professor Louise Hayward has been asked to lead, and the development of a set of purpose and principles for the post-school education research and skills system. Like education systems across the world, the Scottish education system has been tested by the pandemic in many ways. It has shown itself to be resilient, creative and adaptive, but the pandemic has presented big challenges, and it is right therefore that we collectively take this opportunity to reflect and to reform. We start from strong foundations. Scotland is the only part of the UK to offer 1140 funded hours of early learning and childcare to eligible children. Our school pupils are benefiting from more teachers, with teacher numbers at their highest since 2008 and the highest per pupil of any UK country. Over 93 per cent of school leavers in education, employment or training are progressing on to positive destinations. On tackling the attainment gap, we are making good progress too, with our record 16.7 per cent of university engines coming from SIMD 20 backgrounds in 2021. Scotland has a highly educated population and has the highest proportion of adults with tertiary level education in the UK. At the heart of our reform programme is pride in the skills, the talent and commitment in our education system to date, with a recognition that we cannot stand still and change is needed, however, and that reform is necessary as we look to the future. That is a message in Professor Ken Muir's report and one that we hear from across the sector. I have made clear my determination to deliver change. This is something that Government cannot and should not deliver alone. Professor Muir highlights in his report that education policy and services are best developed when they are informed by the practice and the experience of those who use and deliver them at every level. We want to bring the widest possible range of voices and views into the room. As I am sure the chamber will agree, it is our children and young people who hold the biggest stake in our education system, and I am determined that they will be heard just as strongly across our reform programme, as they were in Professor Muir's report. We know the incredible work teachers, school staff and practitioners do to support learners, and we will continue to draw on that experience and expertise through our engagement with professional associations and more widely. We will be proactive in engaging with all those who have a stake in the continued success of our education system. Delivery partners, trade unions, equality and human rights organisations, Gallic, Comedium and Scots language sectors, practitioners working at every level, employers, the youth work sector, parents and carers, the representative organisations and indeed wider communities. It is also important that the agenda for education reform is far reaching covering the span of our lifelong learning journey. I have committed the Scottish Government to holding a national discussion to establish a compelling and consensual vision for the future of Scottish education. Those working in the sector and many in this chamber will recall the national debate on education, which was held in 2002. That debate led to the creation of curriculum for excellence, a curriculum in which last year's OECD independent report found offers an inspiring and widely supported philosophy of education. Two decades on from the last national debate on Scottish education, the time is right to discuss our vision for the system. This is a discussion for everyone and I have written today to education spokespeople from all parties in this chamber inviting them to take part. Professor Muir has challenged all of us to work together to establish a consensual vision for education which can genuinely put the learner at the centre. I sincerely hope that this is a challenge that we all rise to, including today. We might not agree on everything, but that should not stop us from finding common ground. The national discussion will be co-convened by the Scottish Government and our local government partner, COSLA, and will launch in the new term. Local government is the statutory provider of education and in any truly national discussion has to be a joint endeavour. I am grateful to COSLA for their support for the national discussion and look forward to working with them in the coming months. I am pleased to inform Parliament that Carol Campbell, Professor of Leadership and Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education at the University of Toronto, and Dr Alma Harris, Emeritus Professor Swansea University and Professor at Cardiff School of Education and Social Policy have agreed to co-facilitate the national discussion. Both professors have extensive experience of educational change, leadership and school improvement, as well as a strong understanding of the Scottish education system through their work as members of the international council of education advisers. They are committed to ensuring that the discussion engages widely and reflects the views of those who need to listen to most, our learners. It is by listening carefully to the learners of today that we will build a vision for the education system of the future. We are grateful to the Scottish youth Parliament for the work that they will be doing over the summer to start gathering the views of young people, and we look forward to working with many other organisations and learners as we seek to hold the discussion in which we prioritise listening to those whose voices are seldom heard. I want this to be the most inclusive ever discussion on education. I also look forward to meeting all the members of the international council of education advisers later this month who will be able to bring their diverse international perspectives to bear on the opportunities and the challenges for Scotland's education system in a post-pandemic world. Presiding Officer, it is crucial that our reform programme takes this opportunity to reflect, debate and develop what we need not just now but in the future for all parts of the learner journey. That is why I asked Professor Louise Hayward to undertake an independent review of qualifications and assessment. As with Professor Ken Muir's work, this process is fully independent, but I can confirm that Professor Hayward has now started the review and is committed to meaningful engagement with all interested parties, not least young people themselves. An independent review group has been established that includes young people and teachers who will now work with their peers to consider options for change. The review will also engage directly with schools and colleges and key partners in learner journey qualifications and assessment. Professor Hayward will report to me by the end of March 2023 and crucially will work closely with the national discussion so that key initial findings from the exercise can be considered ahead of final recommendations on the futures of examinations and assessment. Those strands of work will also connect into and inform the development of the purpose and principles for our post-school education research and skills ecosystem. The development of the purpose and principles is an opportunity to stimulate debate, challenge perceptions and further develop a shared evidence base on what the post-school ecosystem delivers for Scotland, allowing our efforts and decisions to deliver the outcomes that we want to see. I have spoken about our commitment to designing and delivering real change and of bringing wide and diverse voices into the conversation. That will also be reflected in how we create a new qualifications body, a new national agency for Scottish education and an independent inspectorate body. Those bodies will replace the Scottish qualifications authority in Education Scotland. Design and delivery of the new bodies will be informed by engagement with a broad spectrum of those with a stake in their success and underpinned by determination to bring in external views and innovative ideas that test, challenge and embed new approaches, cultures, governance and accountabilities and ways of working. I have ensured that Professor Ken Muir and Louise Hayward have key roles in those arrangements to provide on-going strategic and external support and critical challenge. I will also be ensuring that a number of external individuals sit at the very centre of that work that is now starting to design the new bodies. To provide that critical challenge, we know, will be needed to achieve real change and reform of the system. Building on the foundations laid by Professor Muir's extensive engagement, a stakeholder reference group will shortly be established, which I will chair, and we will also be looking to draw on the approach taken by Social Security Scotland through their experience panels so that a broader range of people with an interest in education can have a say in the design of processes and services for the new bodies. I emphasise to Parliament that overall accountability and responsibility for the reform programme will be with the Scottish Government and ultimately with me as Cabinet Secretary. I have been clear and unambiguous in setting out my desire for substantive change and meaningful reform, with children and young people, families, teachers and practitioners playing a key part in that decision making. Staff in Education Scotland and the SQA deserve our thanks for continuing to deliver for Scotland's learners, including successful delivery of exams over the past two months, and we will ensure that the knowledge, expertise and experience contributes to that reform process. I spoke earlier about the importance of early learning in childcare, and we are committed to ensuring that inspection of early learning in childcare supports delivery of high-quality services and ensures appropriate scrutiny, but we need to remove unnecessary burdens and duplications. We welcome Professor Muir's recommendations that there should be a shared inspection framework for early learning in childcare settings, developed by the Care Inspectorate and the new education inspectorate. We will come forward with specific proposals to consult the sector shortly, followed by a programme of engagement over the summer and autumn. I am working with Her Majesty's chief inspector of education and the chief executive of the Care Inspectorate to identify what they can do in partnership from the start of the next academic year to streamline and improve the inspection process for providers. Each of the areas that I have updated on today will be developed through joint working in the weeks and months to come. It will be a discussion and a journey for everyone, with a stake in the continued success of Scottish education, and I look forward to continuing to work constructively with members and others on our reform ambitions. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues that have been raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will move on to the next item of business. I would be grateful if members who wish to ask a question were to press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call Oliver Mundell. This is not education reform. It is more of the same with a different name. While standards continue to slip and our young people are let down, this Government does not very much at all. Professor Walter Humes sums it up, doesn't he? Boards populated by the usual suspects, including senior staff from the bodies that are to be replaced. He says that it sounds like insider dealing with those who are part of the problem being tasked with producing the solutions. He is right, isn't he? Cabinet secretary, you and the First Minister are part of the problem, aren't you? Those remarks that have been referred to were made before I made the statement and before we have made any announcements about the governance of the process. However, to anyone who still has a doubt about my ambitions for change in that area, I came in very early into that post and set out very early my determination for that reform process. I came to education from another position within the Scottish Government that has moved a system that was unpopular and people had concerns over, and we have developed from that a social security system that has delivered real change that is now respected across Scotland. The Government has, and I have, a history of delivering real change. That is exactly what I am determined to do, so I appreciate that people will be concerned that this is not a complete process of reform. I think that I have made very clearly why that is not the case. The programme will be overseen by ministers. Yes, it will be delivered of course by Scottish Government officials. I have spoken in my statement about the importance of the critical friends and the critical contacts that we will have in that process. Nothing will prevent change from happening. Michael Marra, I hope that the cabinet secretary would appreciate the frustration of the chamber at the internable delays. He talks about real change but nothing has actually changed. We have more and more groups talking about change. If the cabinet secretary wanted to send an invitation to join a group, she could have picked up the phone, she did not have to have a statement to Parliament to do it, because there is really precious little else in this statement that we did not already know. It confirms once again only the glacial case of reform. We are eight months on from Professor Hayward being appointed. Could we not expect today, at the very least, maybe an interim report? When on earth will the actual report be published? This is not delay without cost or consequence. A generation of young Scots, Presiding Officer, are failed by this Government and debilitated by the pandemic and they are being left without solution or redress, and that is entirely unacceptable. It is good to have today confirmed that Education Scotland is going to go. Has the cabinet secretary written a letter to the leaders of that organisation today as well? Only days ago, the Education Committee was told that the body was not being scrapped and that for years to come it was going to be, and I quote, business as usual. Business as usual, Presiding Officer, is of course the problem. Savage yearly cuts in schools, colleges and universities or the post school ecosystem as civil service would have it calls. Does the cabinet secretary agree that any discussion of reform must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of those cuts and a commitment to resource our education system properly? I look forward to Scottish Labour bringing through cost of proposals at the next budget. I may have a long wait, Presiding Officer, because they do not do that. They simply make statements in Parliament and then do not back that up about how actually anything will be resourced. That is the difference between being in opposition with no hope of being in government and actually being in government itself. Business as usual is important because until the new organisations are established, of course they will continue to deliver support for teachers and deliver exams. Business as usual is not to be mocked and is not to be sidelined. It is actually to be encouraged and to be supported to ensure that our children and young people are still supported through this process. We talk about the need for speeds in this issue and yes, there is a need for improvement in this. That is exactly why the Scottish Government has delivered already 2,000 additional teachers from pre-pandemic levels and I have committed to a billion pounds worth of expenditure. We will look at a longer-term reform progress. It is important that we do that, not just as a Government but that we do that in a wide way that encourages a great conversation and a discussion about what needs to happen. That is exactly why we have and will set up facilitation work with the Scottish Youth Parliament, facilitation work with our teachers and the stakeholder groups to ensure that they are hearing from each other. That is getting directly to me. Professor Louise Hayward is independent of Government. She has been working exceptionally well with those in the education system to develop quite an innovative approach to how she is going to be delivering her reports. She has come to work with the national discussion because it is important that she responds after that, because I do not want to get into a position where what is decided for qualifications actually tilts what we do in the rest of the education progress. That is exactly why the reform process is something that has been worked on closely right across the education system. I hope that, despite the questions today, Michael Marra will take part in that. I welcome the cabinet secretary's update and the next crucial stage of reform set out today, especially the commitment to put the voices of our young people at the heart. The cabinet secretary will agree with me, however, that we must provide assurances to learners that this process will deliver real change and meaningful change. What assurances can the cabinet secretary provide of her personal commitment to deliver just that? I have made very clear, both in my initial statement until Oliver Mundell, that I am absolutely determined to deliver real change in the education system. How we will do that as a Government is to work, yes, right across Government, but to engage with practitioners and learners, those who deliver and use education, and those who have different views indeed from the Scottish Government to ensure that those views are being heard right at the centre of the reform progress. I think that what we have set up both for the national discussion and for the reform and replacement of the organisations and qualifications is an example of that. Learning from what has worked well in other parts of Government, for example, around social security, about ensuring that we are using a wide range of partners, not just perhaps the usual suspects that you would see around the table in a discussion around education, but reaching out as extensively as we possibly can. I gave the example of the user panels as one of that. I think that there is a real opportunity for real change, and that is exactly where I am determined to deliver. This is another education statement that has a lot of words but no direct action. We have commitments from the cabinet secretary today that will create more levels of bureaucracy and we have yet to see any meaningful change. Call me cynical, but why has this statement been brought forward to today? Is this just a ploy to deflect attention from the Scottish Government's desperate attempt to kickstart a new independence referendum campaign? I think that Megan Gallacher will know that it is not the job of the Government, and particularly not me, to set the Parliament timetable. Therefore, this has been important that we get a statement on Scottish education now. I am normally criticised for not doing debates on Scottish education and not doing statements, but somehow we are being criticised to actually bring them today. Megan Gallacher tells Democracy that I call consultation. I think that that is what people are looking to see. I think that what came very strongly through in Ken Muir's report is about consultation and about listening to young people. I am afraid that Michael Marr is not even listening to my response of the amount of children, young people and teachers. However, there is a consultation that is required. It came very strongly through in Professor Muir's work. It was his first recommendation that he gave to Government. I am determined to take that on. I do not see any response from the Opposition parties that would suggest their rise into the challenge so far. I think that any reasonable person would welcome the cabinet secretary's invitation to opposition parties to play a, hopefully, constructive role in the reform programme process, but I wonder if she might provide a little further detail on the robust and credible nature of the external challenge regime that she is envisaging here. I think that this is one of the most important aspects of the reform programme. It is inviting that critical challenge right at the heart of the reform process. I have spoken about the stakeholder reference group, which I will chair, which will ensure that a wide range of stakeholders have a direct ability to have discussions with me about areas of hope, areas of concern and ensure that that is a core and central part of the reform process. I hope that there is reassurance given to those in the sector about the role that we have offered to Professor Ken Muir and Professor Louise Hayward within the programme to provide that critical challenge as well. I think that, particularly Professor Ken Muir's work that is already reported, has been widely acknowledged to have landed well and has presented yes the education sector with challenges, but there is a lot of hope for the future. There is a great deal that we can also do in the national discussion. I have mentioned the co-facilitators that we have had in an attempt to take the politics out of the discussion, as has been suggested, for example by the speech from the outgoing secretary of the EIS, Larry Flanagan, who asked us to attempt to take the politics out of a debate on the education system. I hope that the national discussion co-facilitated by COSLA, co-chair by COSLA, but facilitated by two external experts. There will be another way to ensure that we do just that. With a rising attainment gap, lower levels of attainment funding and an organisation leading our assessments that the cabinet secretary has deemed not fit for purpose, although apparently we shouldn't criticise business as usual, isn't she disappointed and frustrated at her own lack of pace to implement those reforms? Reforms, of course, which will now seek to undo the damage of the SNP's previous reforms since 2007, of which there are too many to list. We have seen an increased funding into attainment, with £1 billion in this parliamentary term, compared with £750 million in the last parliamentary term. We were seeing improvements within the attainment gap pre-pandemic, although clearly the pandemic will have presented Scotland as education systems right across the world with certain challenges, but that is exactly why. We have provided that additional funding for the attainment challenge funding and we are providing more teachers the commitment to have 3,500 teachers by the end of the parliamentary term and, as I mentioned earlier, 2,000 extra teachers more than pre-pandemic levels. Ruth Maguire to be followed by Willie Rennie. It's learners the reformed system of education outlined by the cabinet secretary needs to serve. Children and young people must be centred in this process. How will the Scottish Government ensure that that happens? I will be meeting directly with a group of children and young people in the first of a series of engagement sessions very soon to hear directly from them about their priorities for education. That is the first in a series of moves that we are making within education to shift that power balance to enable learners to be fully centred to the development of the reform progress. I mentioned within my statement the important work that we will be carrying out facilitated by the Scottish Youth Parliament to undertake—they will be undertaking an open discussion of the forthcoming summer sitting to ask young people about how this national discussion should be shaped. Of course, Professor Hayworth also has two MSYPs working on her independent review group. I hope that that gives Ruth Maguire just some examples of how we are putting young people at the heart of this process. Willie Rennie to be followed by Siobhan Brown. Within the last few days, the education secretary's speech to the EIS was described as pathetically weak by her new general secretary. The education secretary was humiliated by the First Minister on the date for closing the poverty-related attainment gap. The education secretary has broken her promise to have a qualified nursery teacher in every deprived community. With that record, what confidence can we have for the chances of real change on reform? I welcomed my discussions with the new general secretary for the EIS. As I enjoyed my discussions with the previous general secretary, I am sure that those will continue on many issues, some we will agree on and some we will not. However, we have a shared endeavour, and I think it is wider than just the Scottish Government and the EIS, to be able to have a discussion about reform for education and the replacement of our organisations. Of course, there has been no change, and there will be no change with the policy on the removal of the attainment gap. Mr Rennie and others in me wish to misinterpret it, to misconstru an attempt to have a division between myself and the First Minister. There is none, there will be none, and we are determined to fulfil our pledges that we had in the programme for government. Siobhan Brown to be followed by Ross Greer. We need to make sure that we hear from the people who know our pupils and our education system best teachers. Can I ask what opportunities teachers will have to shape Scotland's reformed education system through the process outlined by the cabinet secretary today? We will very much be at the heart of the system of reform along with young people. I will again mention the stakeholder reference group, which will play an important part in. I mentioned earlier as well that we are looking and giving further thought to those who we can involve directly on the delivery boards themselves, and I am sure that teachers will play a role in that. That will also go alongside the work that I continue to do when I meet, for example, the teachers panel, who ensure that I have a direct voice with front-line teachers, which I find exceptionally useful. Again, the important example that we have seen in the past in Social Security Scotland about their experience panels is something that I would like to see how we can use within the education reform progress, and of course that will involve teachers. The success of the process will depend on a change in culture as well as a change in structures. One entirely fair point of criticism in recent years has been the hostility by the education agencies, particularly the SQA, to any feedback and constructive criticism. The role of the stakeholder reference group will be key to providing the kind of unvarnished constructive challenge needed to establish that new culture. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how that group will engage directly with the officials designing those new bodies? An important aspect around the stakeholder reference group is that it will be chaired by me directly, and I will hear often and frequently from them during the reform process to ensure that they have that direct link not just to officials but to ministers directly. Ross Greer's point about culture is exceptionally important. We have to ensure that we not only get the structures correct, but the cultures and values that we want within our education system are absolutely embedded from day one in our new agencies, whether that is the replacement to the SQA or the replacement to Education Scotland or indeed the new inspectorate. The way we can do that is to ensure that not just the working group but also the entirety of the reform programme board process has, within its very initial discussions and working, that discussion around culture and the fact that we cannot move on in any of that, unless we ensure that the culture is appropriate within all the replacement organisations. We all want Scotland's education system to compete with the best in the world. How will the Scottish Government ensure that we use this opportunity of reform to learn from the best globally? One of the important ways that we can do that is through the facilitators that I have announced today for the national discussion on education and why we continue to ensure that we have the International Council of Education Advisers, whom I can seek their views on. I look forward to meeting them in a few weeks' time where we can discuss the reform progress. I would also point out that we have invited the OECD on a number of occasions to provide us with a critical challenge through the reviews of curriculum for excellence and further reviews that they have carried out. Importantly, we act on their recommendations, which is reform process, which is a good example of that. On 18 May, in the Education, Children and Young People's Committee, I asked the Cabinet Secretary when the attainment gap would be closed. She said, I will not set an arbitrary date for when the attainment gap will be closed. Those are the very words of the Cabinet Secretary in response to my very open question. When will the gap be closed, I will not set a date. Now that the First Minister says that it is 2026, I think that this Parliament deserves to hear the Cabinet Secretary say here and now that the attainment gap will be closed by 2026 within the lifetime of this Parliament. Will she produce a set of milestones by which we can judge how she is progressing towards the achievement of that objective? Two very simple questions. The discussion that we had within the education committee and the discussion that has been had around the First Minister's reflections on the programme for government show that we are all right across government determined to close the attainment gap. Yes, it will have been impacted by the pandemic, but as the programme for government set out in 2016, we are absolutely determined to see that progress. That is laid out in the programme for government. That has been laid out in the programme for government of 2026. There hasn't been nothing that has changed from what has been in the programme for government and what has been said by the First Minister on this issue or indeed any of the discussions that I have had within the education committee. We are all right across government determined to close the attainment gap and we will be able to see that. One of the ways that we are determined to see the approach taken by local government because they are directly involved and delivering education is around the stretch aims that we have asked for them to proceed with. That is a new addition to our education system. The local authorities will be developing those stretch aims and I said at the education committee that we will be publishing those if I am not happy or concerned about the pace of change within that. Of course I will let the education committee know and it is unfortunate through that entire answer that Mr Kerr has refused to listen to it, so I perhaps think that we will be around this road again because he is refusing to answer, to listen to what the Scottish Government is doing and to listen to the work that we are doing with local government to ensure that we are delivering on it. That concludes the ministerial statement on education reform updates. There will be a very short pause before we move to the next item of business.