 The next item of business is a debate on motion 17091, in the name of Liz Smith, on subject choice. I would ask those who wish to speak in the debate to press a request to speak buttons. I call on Liz Smith to speak to and move the motion for up to 13 minutes, please. I open the debate by moving the motion in my name and by reiterating our belief on those benches that Scottish education should be based on excellence and equity and that it can once again lead the world when delivering the highest standards. That, however, will not happen until the Scottish Government changes its focus. Scottish education was so admired around the world because there was this universal understanding that good schooling was the key that could unlock so many different opportunities in life, never mind in employment. There was an expectation, irrespective of your class or background or whatever type of school you attended, that everyone would have a good grounding in the basic skills and that poorer standards would never be tolerated. The teaching was a very highly valued profession, the leadership was generally strong and good schools were seen as the central component in building strong communities. In short, many schools in Scotland were synonymous with excellence and they did not need endless edicts from local or central government telling them what to do because aspiration was ingrained in the DNA of their schools. The Scottish Government knows that it can no longer make that claim of all-round excellence. This Parliament has spoken many times about the evidence that demonstrates that we should be doing a whole lot better if we are to match up to our full potential just as the OECD identified in its last report into Scottish schools. It is our contention that we will not be able to unlock that full potential, which is undoubtedly there until we address the fundamental weaknesses in the delivery of the curriculum for excellence, for which the question of subject choice has become one of the most significant and pressing issues and one that is obviously causing considerable worry to parents, teachers and young people and, of course, to the education committee of this Parliament. One of the other great attributes of Scottish education was the breadth of the curriculum, maintained not just in early secondary schooling, but in later secondary schooling too. Indeed, that breadth whereby young people could acquire national qualifications with a balanced group of science, social science and languages, as well as in English and maths, was seen as superior to the A-level system in England and to several other curricular systems elsewhere. At its inception 15 years ago, the intention of the curriculum for excellence was to build on that success, but also rightly to recognise that in the modern world society would require a greater focus on skills and on personal and social responsibility than had been the case in the past. In other words, education should not only be about the knowledge-based learning in the abstract, but also about how it is applied. Young people should understand why they are learning something just as much as what they are learning. As such, one of the intentions of the curriculum for excellence was to widen subject choice, not reduce it. In 2008, the Scottish Government's curriculum guidance made that principle abundantly clear. No one could disagree with the fact that young people should understand why they are learning something and learning additional skills, but the trouble is that the curriculum has completely lost its balance. As Professor Lindsay Paterson said in a recent article in The Sunday Times, the focus on core knowledge has been diminished. Our hard-pressed teachers have been so busy measuring experiences and outcomes and wading through thousands of bits of paper issued by the education agencies that they have had less time to get on with teaching that most people recognise as the core curriculum. Let me turn to the details of what has happened in the context of subject choice, the facts of which have been increasingly clear over the past two years and which are currently before the Education Committee. Although, can I make the point here that the concerns about the narrowing of subject choice were raised by Aberdeenshire schools as far back as 2013 and again in this Parliament by the Conservatives in 2015? This Parliament knows that it was the norm for Scottish schools to offer six subjects in S4 and that the subject choice column structure in the vast majority of schools was designed to do just that. Now, thanks largely to the work of Professor Jim Scott, we know that the majority of schools in Scotland are offering only six subjects in S4. Those schools will undoubtedly also be offering other courses, many of which have a very good pupil uptake and are very educationally beneficial. However, the fact remains that they are offering fewer core subject choices than they were before, and I will address the impact of that in just a minute. John Swinney. I am grateful to Liz Smith for giving way. Does she not understand the inherent contradiction in the remark that she has just made, where she has welcomed the fact that there are other curriculum choices and offerings available to pupils within schools? At the same time, as welcoming that has bemoaned the fact that that has led to a reduction in one particular year of S4 in the range of subjects that young people are ordinarily choosing when, in fact, more young people are now staying on at school for longer and therefore have the opportunity to undertake further courses. Liz Smith. There is no contradiction whatsoever, cabinet secretary, because the critical issue here, as we were reminded this morning, is not about the numbers. It is about the qualitative effect on the subject choice that young people are able to make, and the real concern that this Parliament is seeing just now is that there has been a diminution of the core subjects that not only do they want to take, but they need to take and that Scotland needs to take for economic benefit. That is the key point, cabinet secretary. However, there is another fundamental point here, and that is the growing inequity across the country. We know that 32 per cent of schools are still managing to offer seven subjects and 11 per cent of schools are still offering eight subjects, as well as those that schools in the independent sector. We know, too, that there is important evidence that points to the fact that young people who are at schools in more disadvantaged communities are generally likely to be offered fewer subjects than those in the more affluent areas. In evidence to the Scottish Parliament, the Royal Society of Edinburgh said that schools have undoubtedly cut the number of subjects that pupils can sit, and that has hurt the pupils from the most deprived communities the most. Marina Shapira of Sirling University said that the finding had been striking, namely that there was a clear relationship in the reduction in the number of subjects that were studied by S4 pupils and the level of school area deprivation. She was very clear about the subsequent disadvantage to those in those schools, something that parents believe can affect negatively on the employability of some of their young people. Cabinet secretary, it is unacceptable that there is this inequity because it fundamentally undermines one of the key strengths of Scottish education. If the cabinet secretary looks very carefully at the transcript of the education committee reports, he will see that the committee members—labor, liberal, green, conservative and the SNP—are unanimous in our concerns on that point. However, there is another point here as well. The curriculum fractions were also meant to provide greater autonomy for schools as they approached the curriculum development, yet in many local authorities across Scotland it is the local authority that appears to have taken the one-size-fits-all decision about how many subjects are offered. I am sure that I am not the only member in the chamber to have received communications from parents asking me where the fairness lies in schools in one local authority, which has a blanket approach to only six subjects, while in S4, in some neighbouring local authorities, that is not the case. I am slightly puzzled. She seems to be arguing on the one hand for more consistency on the national level and yet for more autonomy for the individual schools. Can she explain how those two tie together? Yes, I can, because the fundamental principles of the curriculum for excellence have not allowed those two to match up. We need consistency, of course we do, and we need core curricular subjects in every school. I think that we are all agreed on that, and that is certainly all the evidence that is coming back from the Scottish Parliament. However, as things stand just now, the curriculum for excellence and the principles that it is supposed to enshrine does not allow for that to happen, and that is a major concern, as far as we are concerned. John Swinney? I think that this is a fundamental point, which I do not understand about the Conservatives position here, because I agree with the Conservatives about schools having much more discretion over curricular choice. Indeed, that is one of the fundamental elements of the head teacher's charter that I am currently implementing within Scotland. I agree with that point about school empowerment, but I do not then understand how Liz Smith can complain about the products of school empowerment if that leads to schools taking different decisions one school compared to another. I can allow you a little extra time, Ms Smith-Liz Smith. Cabinet Secretary, I just give you the example that Larry Flannigan gave us from ADES at the time, where he argued that it was Tavish Scott who made the point that in some schools was it possible for youngsters to take the three sciences? He said that yes, of course it is possible for them to take the three sciences, but in a school that is only permitting the six subject choice option, if you are taking the three sciences, you are taking physics, chemistry and biology, plus English and maths, but you only have one other subject that you can take. Where is the breadth, Cabinet Secretary, in that? That is one of the serious problems about curriculum for excellence. I think that I have taken quite a lot of interventions. I think that that is a very significant issue about the traditional value and ethos of the Scottish curriculum, namely a strong balance between science, social sciences and languages, and one that maintains a really strong breadth at higher. If the Cabinet Secretary needs any more evidence, perhaps he could have a look at what has happened to the uptake of modern languages, perhaps he could have a look at some of the issues about STEM subjects, because it is those issues that many of the people who are giving evidence to this Parliament are complaining about. Of course, it also tells us that there has been a huge imbalance between the broad general education—I think that the name tells us something—and the senior phase. I think that it was Jenny Gilruth, who rightly argued last week that young people actually have more subjects to study in the early years of secondary education because of the 3 plus 3 model, as opposed to the 2 plus 2 plus 2 model. I agree, but the huge problem is that they suddenly find themselves that they have got to drop down to six subjects in S4, something that, incidentally, has a knock-on effect of the timing of the subject choice that they make. What we are saying to you, Cabinet Secretary, is that the effective choice—the effective choice—which is always underpin the so-called gold standard of hires and advanced hires—is now being constrained. There is clear evidence that points to that, Cabinet Secretary, and that is what is the major concern for this Parliament. May I finish, Cabinet Secretary, on where I think that we have to deal with three very specific things? The first is a very strong suggestion made by Dr Allan Britton, who argued that there is confusion around the curriculum for excellence, and it remains unclear about who takes ownership of the curriculum in Scotland. That ties in with the point that is often made about broad general education, which is designed by Education Scotland in the senior phase, however. It has been SQA. There is a disconnect somewhere along the line, and, Cabinet Secretary, I think that we all agree that we have to do something about that. Secondly, there has to be a debate about what the core curriculum should offer in schools. If we look abroad to what schools are asked to do, there is a desire to ensure that there is a strong balance between knowledge-based learning and skills development, but the former scene is extremely important so that young people can make a fully informed choice. Thirdly, it must relate to the question of teacher numbers, because we are very clear that the squeeze is having a detrimental effect on the number of subjects because the number of teachers has been squeezed and the availability of certain teachers in certain subjects is not as good as it should be. Education is many things. It is the foundation on which we base our hopes and ambitions for our children, as well as something that touches our deepest emotions. It is the prerequisite for economic wealth, the guardian of our culture, the vehicle by which we learn about our rights and responsibilities, and it is the key with which we can unlock so many doors to the wider world. It is also supposed to be the SNP's top priority. How often have we heard in speeches or in programmes for government that excellence and equity are the two principles underpinning Scottish education? How we wish that in practice they were. Education is the most precious gift that we give to our young people, but for far too many of them the current system of schooling in SNP Scotland is letting them down. The Scottish Conservatives believe that things could and should be so much better so that Scotland can once again lead the world. I now call John Swinney to speak to and move amendment 17091.4 for eight minutes please cabinet secretary. The purpose of curriculum for excellence is to provide young people with the skills, knowledge and experiences that will prepare them for life beyond school and enable them to fulfil their potential. We must support our young people to flourish in our modern, complex and uncertain world. Curriculum for excellence was introduced after a major national debate on the aims and the future of our education system. It represented a deliberate move away from an approach that has prescribed the content of the curriculum to one that emphasises both the autonomy of the professional teacher and the capacities and the learning experiences of the learner. In short, CFE was predicated on the view that our teachers are best placed to know their learners and work with partners to meet their needs and aspirations. They must have the flexibility to make the correct judgments about the journey of a young person. Given all of this, I am surprised that the debate has solely focused on the counting of the qualifications taken and particularly on the narrow focus on S4 within the three-year senior phase. Instead of looking at the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve and, in my view, in many cases succeeding in achieving, what is implied is that the new system is providing our young people with fewer opportunities. I simply do not recognise that, of course. Liz Smith I thank the cabinet secretary for giving way. Cabinet secretary, it is not all about numbers. It is about the nature of the choice that they are afforded. That is the key point. To be absolutely technically correct, there is a relationship between the numbers and the choices. Of course, there must be, but the point that I am about to come on to is about the question of breadth, which was, I think, due justice to this point, was not given in Liz Smith's speech a moment ago. When I wrote to the Education Committee convener October last year, I was clear that any comparisons between the current and previous system needs to take into account the fundamental differences between curriculum design before and after the introduction of curriculum for excellence. Under the broad general education—and Liz Smith did not refer to this point—young people are entitled to study a wide range of subjects to a much deeper level across the eight curricular areas without the pressure of taking qualifications. That broad experience extending into S3, not S2, is one of the key differences that ensures that breadth is not lost. In the senior phase, young people have the opportunity to acquire a range of qualifications and awards over a three-year period, not a one-year period in S4. I understand the point that the cabinet secretary is trying to make, but does he not recognise that if pupils drop subjects in S4, particularly modern languages and STEM subjects, it is very difficult then to pick them up in S5, and almost impossible to pick them up again at advanced higher? No, I do not accept that experience, because that suggests that when a young person leaves the broad general education, they dispense with everything and any bit of knowledge and skill that they have acquired in that process, and that is a ridiculous argument to advance. The guiding principle is that qualifications are taken at the appropriate stage for the individual young person over the three years of the senior phase. That represents an intended fundamental shift from the pre-CFE era. In the national debate in 2002, which preceded the development of CFE, it was accepted that, because there was too much assessment, there was too little equipping young people to handle a range of challenges in life. The intention was to create a system that gave the flexibility for schools to design approaches that reflect the needs of schools and young people. The OECD recommended that change should be driven from the profession itself rather than from the political centre, and that is, for me, a fundamental issue in this debate. The curriculum models that have been developed have been developed by the teaching profession in consultation with educational professionals around the country. That was a further emphasis on the autonomy of the teacher, which I fully support and which is central to the Government's empowerment agenda, which is intended to foster collaboration and to create dynamic and innovative curriculum approaches. If Liz Smith will forgive me, I have quite a lot of ground to cover. Focusing on numbers of qualifications taken in S4 simply does not recognise that CFE enables our young people to achieve higher levels of knowledge and experience across a broader range of subjects by the end of S3, or that more and more young people stay at school beyond S4 and beyond S5. S4 used to be the end of a phase of learning, with the aim of accumulating as many standard grades as possible, with many learners opting out of school. That is no longer how young people interact with our education system. They stay at school longer, they engage in school-college partnerships, they take forward opportunities through the developing Scotland's young workforce agenda, they take forward a range of national progression awards. For all of those reasons, a comparison between the number of standard grades that young people sat in S4 in the past and the current circumstances in Scottish education is, in my view, misplaced. Surely the comparison that matters is what young people achieve on exit from school. For example, last year, 62.2 per cent of school leavers left with a qualification at level 6 are better. That has gone up from 55.8 per cent in 2012-13. If Mr Mundell would forgive me, I have still got some detail to cover. Work-based provision for young people in the senior phases is growing. The proportion of school leavers that attain vocational qualifications at SCQF level 5 and above has increased from 7.3 per cent in 2013-14 to 14.8 per cent in 2017-18. 61,000 SQA skills-based qualifications, awards and certificates were achieved in 2018, up from 47,000 in 2014. Perhaps above all else, we should celebrate the outcomes that were achieved by the education system. Last year, a record proportion of school leavers went on to positive destinations, including work, training or further study. CfE was designed—of course, yes. Johann Lamont That is a slightly separate point, but would the cabinet secretary confirm that he is going to do an analysis of what those positive destinations are, because far too often it is insecure work-zero hours contracts and no guarantee of any training? I am very happy to explore the substance of that, but we should recognise the fact that young people are leaving school with more qualifications and going on to better destinations. I recognise the importance of this debate and the need for us to consider a broad range of evidence in that process, but I am perplexed about why we are having the debate today. The Education and Skills Committee has embarked on an inquiry on this topic, and it has held only three evidence sessions. Some of the evidence that the Education and Skills Committee has already heard is highly disputed. It has not heard from professional associations and disputed by other academics, but no, it has not heard from other academics, not just the ones that the committee has heard from and not by me, not just by me, but by other academics. It has not heard from professional associations or the chief officers of education at a local level. I will do that. I will have to be brief, cabinet secretary. I have only got a minute more. I will be very brief. Will the cabinet secretary accept that if we spent more time debating education on Government time, perhaps this issue that has been in the public spotlight for years now might have already been covered? What I cannot understand is why we have an education committee process that is under way that is supposed to be taking in excess of 20 hours to consider balanced evidence, because we need to have an evidence debate on the subject. Today, we are being asked in 160 minutes to debate something that the education committee has planned to take at least 20 hours to explore in the detail of its own proceedings. The motion today offers no evidence and no solutions. Subjects are already chosen for the next year, so we could have waited until the education committee deliberated in June and informed our considered opinion about how to move forward. Subject to what I hear later today, I intend to ask the Government to support the Labour amendment, because I think that it makes a reasonable point. I consider the amendment that I am moving to today that is equally reasonable. It does not try to dodge the debate, it just asks that we carry it. It just encourages us to look at it in an evidence fashion and conclude what to do next for the simple reason that that is what the people of Scotland would expect our Parliament to do—to listen to the evidence and come to the conclusion and not have a debate anchored on the principle of political opportunism for the Conservatives, which is what we have got today. I will say it for the benefit of Sir Edward Mountain, I will tell him again, political opportunism of the Conservative Party. Cabinet Secretary, I move the motion. I am losing my voice, yes. It is particularly if you drum your deaths. I could not hear what Ross Greer said. If I cannot hear it, the official report cannot hear it. Please do not keep that habit going. I understand passion, but do not drum the deaths so loudly. I cannot hear what people are saying. I now call on Ian Gray to speak to a move amendment 17091.2, Mr Gray. It is quite usual with those opposition debates for all sides to start by acknowledging the importance of the debate, even if they are about to disagree with the substance of the motion. The Government is taking a rather different approach today, though, as we have just heard, with an amendment that says in essence that we should not be debating subject choice in our schools at all, at least today. I hear the argument that they are simply respecting the work of the education committee in our inquiry into the topic, which is on-going, moved no doubt by their profound principles of due parliamentary process and balance, but I am afraid that I do not buy that for the very good reason that Parliament has been asking them to take this issue seriously for four years now. Some of us have been talking about this for a lot longer than 160 minutes, which is for sure. It was back in May 2015 that Kezia Dugdale raised Dr Scott's analysis on a fall in both enrolment and attainment in the new national exams, and I, myself, elaborated Dr Scott's work in a Labour business debate that month. Ms Dugdale raised it again with the First Minister in early June that year. The Government's response then was to deny there was a problem to rubbish the research, even to suggest that Dr Scott, a respected educationalist and former head teacher of several schools, did not really understand schools or exam statistics. Here we are four years on, and Dr Scott is now Professor Scott, and his evidence has built year on year. The general trend is for schools to be offering a maximum of six national subjects in S4, most seven, as opposed to the norm of eight standard grades in the old system. That has seen an average 17 per cent decline in overall uptake by national subjects. A small proportion of that to do with pupil population, yes, but largely driven by a reduction in subject choice. In arts, we have seen around a 40 per cent decrease in enrolments, in art design and technology and in music between 2013 and 2018 in the humanities. There has been a 12 per cent drop in modern studies, which has its exams today. A 35 per cent drop in history and a 35 per cent drop in geography. In languages, there are 41 per cent fewer enrolments in German now compared to then, and a 61 per cent reduction in French and in STEM, 23 per cent down in biology, 28 per cent down in chemistry and 22 per cent down in my old subject of physics. Indeed, Professor Scott is now telling us that some subjects are likely to disappear from the curriculum altogether, most notably certain modern languages. He has been joined in the ensuing four years by colleagues such as Professor Mark Priestley and Dr Maria Shapira, who have demonstrated that the average number of entries per student for national 5 has dropped from 5.8 in 2013, the equivalent to 3.7 in 2016, a 37 per cent decrease. Those figures show the reality of the curriculum narrowing in terms of the actual subjects pupils are able to choose as the new senior phase has been implemented. We have also heard from the likes of Reform Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, who have all presented evidence of the narrowing of our school curriculum and the narrowing of subject choice organisations. Promoting the teaching of subjects such as Gaelic and Geography has sounded alarm bells about what they see as an existential threat to their subjects. In the survey carried out by the education committee, 76 per cent of parents said that their child had not been able to take the subjects that they wanted because of the restrictions of the curriculum. The Government's defence has changed over the four years and is now largely founded in outcomes and increased higher passes. We have heard that from the First Minister on a number of occasions when this topic has been rated. However, it is not good enough to think that our schools are succeeding solely on the basis of success for the ableist and highest-achieving pupils. I am grateful to Mr Gray for giving way. That is not the only statistic that the Government has used. I used the detail about other vocational qualifications that have been achieved. I also talked about positive destinations. There is a range of indicators that suggest that young people are leaving Scottish education with better outcomes than they did in the past. I am afraid, as my colleague John Lamont said, that I will never accept positive destinations as a positive indicator when it includes young people being exploited in zero-hours contracts. I am sorry if the Government wants to use that stat, it needs to fix that and fix it soon. Professor Scott is very clear that those who leave school with national grade qualifications are the ones suffering most from all of that. Reform Scotland shows that schools in deprived areas are likely to offer a narrower curriculum. The Deputy First Minister said in his contribution that what matters is what pupils leave school with. Perhaps he should pay attention to the figures that show that the percentage of pupils leaving school with no qualification at all, while small, is increasing again after years of a falling trend. That is not just about S4 either. It is not just about the impact on national exams. On the other side of the attainment gap, the evidence that is already presented to the committee shows that, while those doing five hires are still doing five hires, why would not they? The ableist pupils will always find their way through, but they are finding their choice of subject restricted by the narrow S4 choices. Proceeding at committee to too few subjects too young, leaving them without that broad formal education of which Scotland has always been so proud. The evidence that there are unintended consequences of curricular and exam reform at play here is overwhelming. The Government has refused to listen for four years now. Our amendment today would simply kick this down the can down the road for another day. Again, our amendment offers a sensible way forward. I am pleased that the Deputy First Minister accepts that because it is also four years since the OECD report on improving schools in Scotland exactly recommended a further evaluation of CFE implementation, particularly the senior phase. That report is always pre-denied by the cabinet secretary, so I really do think that he should have no problem at all in accepting the amendment, as he said he will do. That will allow us to move this debate forward after far too long. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you very much, Mr Greer. I now call Ross Greer, six minutes, Mr Greer. Yesterday, we were discussing the inequality emerging within instrumental music tradition in our schools. That same issue of inequality is playing out with subject choice. From the information that we have, it seems quite clear that pupils in our most deprived communities have fewer subjects to choose from than young people in the most privileged postcodes. However way that is presented, it is an inequality. It is another example of the impact that poverty and the economic situation of both their family and their community are defining the life experience of young people in Scotland. Research by The Times newspaper in 2017 found that, on average, pupils in some of our most deprived communities were being offered a choice of 17 hires. In the least deprived communities, often just as stones throw away, the average offer was 23 hires to choose from. I welcome the fact that we are getting more working-class Scots into university, but we are not going to make the progress that we all want and we are not going to make it last if this gap still exists at the very qualification level that students need to get that university offer. I welcome the fact that a greater variety of qualifications and other experiences are available. The aim here is not to get every young person through five hires in S5, but there is a danger of that as it appears to be the view of some if we explain away the reduced offer of hires in deprived communities by pointing to the other options. We are entrenching in inequality and maximising the higher offer in deprived communities is never the goal because other options exist. I do not think that that is anyone's intention, but it appears to be creeping in as a way of explaining away the inequality. I mentioned the times work from 2017 because the data that we are relying on, whether it is from the times, Mark Presley, Marina Shapira or Jim Scott, is independent. It is gathered and published by journalists and academics, and therein lies one of the key problems that we have when we are discussing subject choice. Education Scotland flat out refused to acknowledge that there is or even may be an issue here, but it is not producing data to back up the recession. The Government's education agency is bearing its head in the sand. If Education Scotland were to produce data showing that there is no pattern of pupils in more deprived areas being offered fewer hires, I would be the first to welcome it. However, right now, we have data showing that the opposite is the case and nothing more than assertion from Education Scotland. If the Government were to instruct its education agency to gather that data, that would be a welcome first step. It would cut out the time-wasting exercise that we are currently engaged in where Education Scotland claimed that there is no problem. One of the key issues faced by many schools is the shortage of subject specialist teachers. We have discussed the challenges of teacher recruitment and retention a number of times before. We know that the problem is most acute in rural communities and in deprived communities, which internally deepens existing inequalities as those schools are simply unable to offer the same subjects as in other areas. The core issues under mining recruitment and retention of teachers are pay and work code. Again, nothing we did not already know. Last month's pay agreement will deliver a significant rise—a restoration. That came after a strong trade union campaign for that pay rise, a campaign that saw one of the largest rallies ever organised by a single union where 30,000 people marched through Glasgow. That partial restoration and pay should go some way to tackling recruitment and retention problems and, in turn, the restrictions on subject choice that many schools are facing. However, again, it is only part of the picture here. One of the core purposes of curriculum for excellence is to give schools the freedom to choose the best way to teach their pupils—again, something that we all signed up to. That flexibility extends to the number of subjects that can be taken at national 5 level. We have seen schools offering anywhere from 5 to 8 nat 5s, but again there appears to be a trend. Schools in the most privileged areas, the highest-achieving by traditional academic standards, are often offering 8 while many others have settled on 6. That raises a host of issues. First of all, it is incredibly confusing for young people and their parents and leads many to believe that their children are missing out on the opportunities to study more subjects for no other reason than their postcode. To some extent, confusion is inevitable. Curriculum for excellence is supposed to give pupils the chance to engage in greater depth with, say, 6 nat 5s compared to 8 standard grades in the previous system, but the combination of a still very new system and one in which there is flexibility across the country was inevitably going to generate concern. There is still some way to go in explaining curriculum for excellence to parents, and the Government should consider how, in conjunction with local councils, it can make progress on that. Beyond that, though— Sorry, Jenny Gilruth. I have got to call you first. This morning in the education committee, we were told by Eileen Plyer, the director of connect, that the number of nationals is not going to have any impact on whether a young person goes on to university. That is because hires of the gold standard of Scottish education. Does Ruth Greer recognise that? I am about to come on to a point about the two-year hire and the potential for that within the system. As I said, there is clearly structural misalignment within the system. In fact, Jenny Gilruth has very ably brought that up in committee in recent weeks. The SQA states that each nat 5 course requires 160 hours for completion, but it is impossible if you do eight courses in one year, as the EIS and others have repeatedly highlighted. One concerning effect of that is, in some cases, the start of study towards nat 5 in S3. That is essentially mirroring the 2 plus 2 plus 2 model, the previous system, and it takes S3 out of the broad general education phase of the curriculum, which again was not an intended outcome. There is a way in which eight subjects can be studied without these contradictions, to take the two-year pathway across S4 and S5, which curriculum for excellence provides for. Not all of those eight would need to lead to qualifications, though they absolutely could. Although that would not work for every pupil, most obviously those who leave at the end of S4, it is an option that a few schools have embraced and which appears to be working. Again, we would all benefit from greater study on this approach, preferably led by Education Scotland. Again, there appears to be a trend directly related to the socioeconomic background of the area, one that Education Scotland needs to acknowledge and explore. The principles of curriculum for excellence are the right ones, so are the priorities, but something is not working. Rather than prescribing a solution, the motion today simply asks the Government to acknowledge the serious concerns that have emerged. I hope that the Government can see fit to swallow their pride and just do that. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Liz Smith for bringing forward this debate today. I mean today, not least because I cannot be in the only constituency MSP who, in the past week, because choices were made by pupils and parents all across Scotland, was asked to intervene with the local high school in Shetland about the choice that this particular person and someone who wanted to take a vocational route into work needed to make because of the choice that was limited in the columns that he was trying to work in. I am afraid that I really did not understand Mr Swinney's attack on the rest of us for not political opportunities, but actually for doing our job. As Iain Gray and the other part of this that is puzzling to me is that having attacked everyone for daring to bring forward a debate about subject choice and speaking to a debate about subject choice, Mr Swinney is now going to accept Iain Gray's amendment, which, after all, is very much the review that many of us have been arguing for some considerable time. If he wants to explain the absolute contradiction in that position, he is more than welcome to. All I was arguing was that the committee is engaged in the process where there is an evidence-gathering exercise under way. I simply think that it is advisable to hear all that evidence. As for the point that Iain Gray reads, it is a perfectly reasonable argument to advance. What I do not see the point of is having a debate today, which is offered absolutely no policy solutions when there is a committee process that is currently under way. I do not accept that analysis, not least of which, because Mr Swinney chunters away from the front bench, I think that he is. I think that another thing about this Government now is that it has been in part so long that anyone who dares to suggest that anything different gets put down on the basis of political opportunism. That is a position that Mr Swinney and Mr Swinney are now in. I think that he just needs to raise his game a bit. What really gets me is that when parents come to say to me that I have raised the issue of subject choice in Parliament because that is what I should do as their representative, I will say to them that Mr Swinney's response to that is that I am guilty of political opportunism. I think that they will say to me that you are doing your job. It is about time that he remembers what his is. The introduction of curriculum for excellence is one of 22 major educational changes in Scotland since the Second World War. Experts say that it takes a decade or more for a form to work and to be properly assessed in its effectiveness. I see no evidence that curriculum for excellence introduction was designed to reduce the choice of learning for young people, but the evidence now in 2019 is unambiguous. Parliament, the Government and schools need to know what the consequence for a young person's learning is of narrowing subject choice in S4. In that assessment, the importance of different routes into work—this is a point that I entirely concede to the cabinet secretary—in formal as well as formal qualifications, and the essential offering of vocational courses and experiences is indeed essential. This is not a debate about why Scots cannot sit three hires in S5 to qualify for a medicine or veterinary studies at Edinburgh University, important as that is. This is a debate about understanding what is going on in schools and whether we need to alter the course of the education super-tanker. Few are arguing—none are arguing today—for a 90-degree swing of the wheel, but some change does seem necessary. If nothing else, I cannot see why we do not want to make the subject choices at S4 to be seven rather than six in Scotland's 348-state secondaries, nor do I see as Ross Greer has rightly raised why 160 hours needs to be delivered in one learning year. That sounds like a dash to learning to me, and also the reality is that it is not happening in many schools across the country either. Seven subject choices would create space in young people's learning for languages, for garlic, for STEM subjects, for computing science and, given Parliament's debated tuition yesterday for music as well, all are worryingly in decline across Scotland. That is surely the answer to Mr Swinney's earlier intervention on Liz Smith's speech 2. To make the change alone, I entirely accept that the education secretary and schools need to know what are the unintended consequences of narrowing a subject choice. That is why Ian Gray's amendment is, in my view, entirely right. The education secretary has often rested on the OECD 2015 report as his justification for various educational initiatives. That is reasonable, so it is important to reflect on the significant recommendation that the OECD made in that case. It said that the need to evaluate how CFE is actually being implemented in schools and community and for that to be done on a Scotland basis, not only in particular local authority areas and on research they proposed that research must and make a clear contribution in helping innovation in schools as learning environments, especially in secondary schools in deprived areas, a point that Ross Greer was reflecting on as well. That latter point is essential, because the cabinet secretary's premier education adviser is Education Scotland. Warringly, for me, in Mr Swinney's speech, he did not cite Education Scotland as a basis for not having this debate today, and yet he gave two and a half hours of evidence to Parliament's education committee some weeks ago. He did not offer any concrete detail, statistics or numbers as to what is happening across Scotland's secondary schools on subject choice. The contrast with Professor Jim Scott could not have been greater. He did say in great detail what was happening. If the Government has wished to take issue with that, they have every right to, but Mr Swinney did not forward any of that analysis in his speech today. What Education Scotland said on teaching numbers was that it is not our responsibility on the impact of deprivation on subject choice. It says that its evidence does not indicate its impact on subject choice, but it did not cite any evidence to support that. On the reason behind the fall in pupils' taking languages, it said twice that it did not have any statistical data, so we wonder what it is up to. I believe that the education secretary would be greatly supported if his premier organisation, responsible for advice to him as the person responsible for education policy in Scotland, did their job. The trouble at the moment is that not many of us know what that job is. Thank you very much. Open debate speeches are six minutes. Jenny Gilruth will be full about Oliver Mundell, Ms Gilruth. Today is perhaps the most important day in the Scottish qualification exam diet, because today is the modern studies exam. I would like to start by taking this opportunity to wish every pupil in Scotland setting a qualification in national 5 higher and advanced higher today the very best of luck. To their teachers, we value your dedication, we value your commitment to our young people and we thank you for your public service to education in Scotland. I know that members will be shocked to learn this, but I studied my standard grade qualifications some 20 years ago. On Monday, at the education committee event in Dunfermline, Ian Gray, bravely and mistakenly told me that I must only have seven standard grades because I was not as bright as my youngest sister who studied nine. In fact, when I was 13 years old, Moira and John Gilruth were told by my careers adviser that I was good at science and in particular his subject of physics. Yes, I will. Ian Gray. To be fair, you did reveal that your sister is a physics teacher, so clearly smarter than. Jenny Gilruth. Thank you, Ian Gray, for that. As a former modern studies teacher, I would beg to differ. Perhaps then I might like to become a doctor, so I should study physics and chemistry because she said that biology is the easy science and you could pick that up in S5. Moira and John were delighted with the prospect of Dr Gilruth's science, so science was for me, except it was not. I promptly dropped both at the end of S4, choosing instead to crash higher history. In 1999, the offer at my secondary school for everyone was seven subjects. By the time Katie Gilruth came along three years later, it was up to eight. By the time the baby, who turned 28 on Monday, came along, she was offered nine subjects. All five council-educated pupils, three different subject offers, all went on to study five hires. There has always been a variance in the number of subjects offered in S4, so to suggest that this is something new is simply not true. Yes, I will. Liam Kerr. I am very grateful. Jim Scott's analysis shows that there are no state schools in the Highlands, Murray, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City offering eight subjects at S4. Several in the central belt do, so does the member think it acceptable that pupils in the north-east are disadvantaged purely because of where they live? Jenny Gilruth. I thank Liam Kerr for that intervention. Unfortunately for him, Jim Scott also said at the same committee session on schools offering six, seven or eight qualifications, assuming that the child manages to carry forward five subjects. They will be able to go on to get five hires. They are therefore not being disadvantaged, and he is misleading in saying that they would be. Going back to the variance, to suggest that something new, as Liam Kerr is trying to allude to, is not true. However, in this job, I have understood over the years that it is really important to consider the views of different generations in this Parliament. I learned from my colleague Gordon MacDonald yesterday that, when he was at school, the so-called academic pupils were offered eight grades and the less academic six. I will forgive Ian Gray Slur on that occasion, because he assumed that we still set subject choice according to ability, but that has not been the case for many years. As the only member who has ever delivered a national qualification or had to write a departmental timetable as a faculty head to accommodate SQR's allocation, I welcome today's debate, because the fact remains that, if you add up all the teaching hours available in one year, which is 160 hours in terms of the exam requirement to teach each subject, it is nigh on impossible to deliver more than five, perhaps six at a push in one year. Again, that is not something new. Pupils in Scotland's schools have been sitting national qualifications since 2013, with the first exams taking place in 2014, five years ago. In fact, my job title as a Secondia Education Scotland was that of national qualifications development officer in 2012, seven years ago. The senior phase was meant to be about depth in learning the broad general education, offering pupils an opportunity to study a wide range of subjects before specialising in S4. In his evidence the education committee last week, Professor Jim Scott told us, to be honest, that most able pupils will cope in any system if they are given only six or seven qualifications to work for, they will use the time well and will probably prosper in that system. So turning Professor Scott's argument on its head, it would seem to be the case that the least able pupils will not cope in any system. A system that forces all pupils to study eight or nine subjects will not allow for everyone to prosper. Where is the equity in that? No, I have taken two already, thank you. Perhaps Ilean Pryder of Connect put it best when she said at the education committee this morning that a focus on numbers takes our eye off the ball, which is actually about all of our young people doing the best that they can. That has to be about the best pathways for every young person, not as one headteacher put it to me recently about badge collecting. Presiding Officer, I do not want to go back to standard grade. That system let too many young people down. That system put undue pressure on pupils' mental health. That system forced many to take subjects to the end of S4, but curriculum for excellence is rooted in personalisation and choice. Curriculum for excellence celebrates the achievements of all of our young people, not just those that take five fires. Curriculum for excellence has delivered a record number of exam passes. Curriculum for excellence has increased positive destinations. Curriculum for excellence is narrowing the attainment gap. Presiding Officer, it is nothing short of political opportunism for the Tories to come here today to debate an issue that the education committee hasn't even concluded its inquiry in. I will take no lectures from any MSP in on this subject, because not a single one of you has ever taught it. Before concluding, I must refer to Ian Gray and Tavish Scott's amendment, which directly referenced the 2015 OECD report on improving Scottish schools. Here is what the OECD said in 2015. A context of criticism could lead to a public and political debate that misses many of the most important pillars and achievements of CFE. All that we do is unnerve teachers with negative impact on morale and on the carefully built union consensus. We think that it is important to avoid this negative scenario. Here we are, Presiding Officer. I am thoroughly depressed by the content of this afternoon's debate, a debate focused on politics over any form of perigogy or commitment to getting it right for every child. Curriculum for excellence and all of its ambitions and achievements has certainly bypassed a few members in the chamber. Maybe it's time that they went back to school. I think that what's most galling is once again hearing this SNP Government and their backbenchers crying crocodile tears about being dragged to this chamber to answer for their shameful and woeful record when it comes to the education of our young people. The very same task that their First Minister claims is her Government's number one priority. If she wants to talk about political opportunism, why is it that this Government is so keen to avoid discussing and debating education in this chamber on Government time, yet it can find magically 90 minutes for a party political broadcast on independence? It's little wonder that parents, teachers and pupils the length and breadth of Scotland can see for themselves what the Scottish National Party's real priority is, and it's certainly not about giving young people more choices. There can be no doubt that the SNP cuts to teacher numbers and Nicola Sturgeon's flawed reforms are limiting choices and opportunities for our young people. I think that the member for giving way talks about, I think that I heard him say cuts in teacher numbers. He will be aware of the question that was answered recently, which shows that there are significantly more teachers in Scotland for people than there are in England under his Government. Oliver Mundell. Whenever things get tough, when it comes to the SNP's record across the last decade, they look somewhere else for diversion, smoking mirror tactics, because the truth is that there are thousands of teachers missing in Scotland, and in particular subjects, there are now no teachers at all in some schools, meaning that young people can't take the subjects of their choice. Young people themselves are disappointed because they are not able to pursue their own ambitions, they are not able to fulfil their own opportunities and they are not able to go on and study the subjects that they want at university because of limited choice and it is not acceptable. I think that what is most alarming is that those opportunities appear to be most limited in our most economically deprived communities and in rural and remote communities outside of the central belt. For a Government that claims that it wants to deliver an education system based on excellence and equity, it is a downright disgrace that pupils going through the education system in Scotland today will be worse off than previous generations. For expert witnesses to come before the education committee and openly talk about a generation of pupils who have not received the choices in education that they deserve should ring alarm bells for us at all. If that wasn't bad enough, if that was some kind of unforeseen accident, that would perhaps be forgivable, but the truth is that those concerns have been raised consistently over a number of years. It's not just today that those questions come up, it's come up time and time again in the Parliament and what's more, a succession of SNP ministers have attempted to reassure this Parliament that a narrowing of subject choice either wouldn't happen or, worse still, was nothing to worry about. The facts, however, tell a different story and it does seem particularly perverse that a curriculum that was designed and changed with the intention of expanding choice and widening breadth has gone on for many young people to do exactly the opposite in the part of school that has most impact on where they go next. While in the past, the norm at S4 was for pupils to sit seven or eight courses, the statistics now show that half of schools are offering just six in S4. In deprived areas, we're seeing that just one in 10 schools now offer the choice of 12 advanced hires. While in contrast, in our most affluent areas, seven in 10 schools are teaching 12 or more, that cannot be right, cabinet secretary, and that is happening on your watch. The SNP's new defence appears to be that opposition parties are doing teachers and young people down that were not pleased that people are coming out of school with qualifications. They claim that we're failing to recognise their successes and achievements. I want to say loudly and clearly on the record that that is absolutely not the case. I want to go further and commend the young people and teachers who are having to work twice as hard to realise their potential and access opportunities within a system that no longer works in their best interests. What's more is not just opposition parties who are raising those concerns, nor is it to educational academics or the real experts in the front line of the teachers in our classroom, but it's young people themselves. Young people themselves are asking where their subject choice is. Year after year, the cabinet secretary and his Government have chosen to ignore those voices and reside over a decline in subject choice and the opportunities that are available to the next generation of Scots. I for one, like Ross Greer, would feel a lot more confident in the SNP Government's ability to address the growing problem if ministers stopped burying their heads in the sand and admitted for once that they might have got things wrong. Until they do, I will make no apology for raising those issues in the chamber, as my Conservative colleagues have been doing in some cases for a decade now. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. I call Gordon MacDonald to be followed by Johann Lamont, Ms MacDonald. I read in the Guardian recently that the former education secretary has watched as class sizes have gone up, schools have fallen into disrepair and teachers have covered for cleaners. That is education in England. The Tories have no answer to Scottish education. In this Parliament lesson, 12 months ago, we were debating subject choice and a motion brought by Liz Smith on behalf of the Conservative Party. Today, we debate the same issue in the middle of an education committee inquiry into this area. An inquiry that only began just before the Easter recess and has not yet heard from teachers, local authorities, the SQA or the cabinet secretary. Indeed, we only heard from parent representative groups this morning. Third-year pupils have already chosen their subjects for S4, so why now? Instead of waiting until June when we can have a more informed debate based on the education committee report and its recommendations, could it be that there is an election in the next few weeks and the Tory party, having dropped in the polls to third place, is hoping to make political capital out of an important issue for parents and pupils? Presiding Officer, as I indicated earlier, we heard from parent groups this morning, and there were two issues that came across strongly regarding concerns about subject choice. Firstly, schools have significant autonomy in how to structure secondary education, and in many cases they have failed to communicate to parents of each of their new year groups how pupils will progress through the school, starting from the broad general education through to the senior phase when examinations take place. Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parents Forum of Scotland, highlighted that parents do not understand the system, they lack basic information on curriculum for excellence in the senior phase and try to relate what is currently happening to their own school experience. Jenny Gilruth I wonder if Gordon MacDonald would agree with me that perhaps meeting an education campaign for MSPs, because it seems to be that MSPs, maybe like parents, do not seem to understand that we have a different examination system now and that things have changed since they were at school. Gordon MacDonald Absolutely. I support any education campaign that raises the level of curriculum for excellence throughout the general population. There is a need to explain to parents what has changed and how it will benefit young people's education as schools cannot make decisions in isolation. Back in 2013, on the eve of the introduction of the senior phase into Scottish schools, the BBC highlighted that previously students studied for seven standard grades but local authorities have consulted with schools and parent groups and six nationals is likely to be more common. One part of the thinking behind that is that it can free up the timetable to help students to study topics and more depth. It also highlighted that what really matters is the number of qualifications that a youngster has when they leave school and not how many they have at a particular point. They might study more nationals after S4. We need to get that across to parents. My second point relates to how subject choice is presented to pupils in S3. The traditional column approach to subject choice has always caused issues for young people even back in the 70s when I was at school. You had to choose either history or geography, you could only do two sciences, etc. That to me is what is at the heart of the problem of subject choice, timetable methodology. The committee's survey of parents found that the timetable and subjects in particular use of the column system was the frequently cited cause of a pupil not being able to take all the subjects that they wished to study. Despite that, a majority of pupils surveyed by the Scottish Youth Parliament agreed that they were able to take all the subjects that they wanted at school. Connect, formerly Scottish Parent Teacher Council, highlighted in their submission that there were different approaches to timetabling that better met the needs of young people. They suggested that pupils should be free to select their choices and rate them in preference. Subject teaching is then matched to demand and a flexible approach adopted to class and year structures so that different levels may be taught together with young people from different year groups. The important point is to give pupils as much possible free choice in subject decisions throughout the senior phase, whether it is S4, S5 or S6. As Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parents Forum of Scotland, stated, it is about what they leave with, not what order they do things. Scotland's school leavers have higher achievement levels and higher positive destinations at any time during the last 20 years. In 2006-07, the percentage of pupils getting a level 5 qualification, a credit in the old standard grade or better, was 71 per cent. Now, although we cannot make a direct comparison, the percentage that you got a level 5 qualification or better last year was 86 per cent. For hires, again, we are unable to make a direct comparison, but last year, 62 per cent of school leavers left with a qualification at level 6 are better, up from 42 per cent in 2006 and 2007. Back in 2009, the percentage of pupils who got 5 hires or more was 22 per cent. Last year, it was more than 30 per cent. There have been concerns for years about the attainment gap between pupils with different backgrounds. Education Scotland and their evidence to the committee highlighted that the attainment gap between rich and poor at a higher level is at an all-time low. A record number of school leavers are in higher education, and a number of school leavers from the most deprived areas in higher education has gone up by 8 per cent points since a decade ago. I call Johann Lamont to be followed by James Dornan. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Here we are. Another education debate with our Cabinet Secretary for Education is taking, I think, a troubling and increasingly common approach in listening to the arguments. He holds the line, seeks to shoot the messenger, quotes carefully selected statistics to make a case. I have to say that the kindest construction I would put on that is largely in denial about many of the areas of concern about the educational experience of too many of our young people. I say in all seriousness to our colleagues across the chamber that belligerence is not a substitute for being accountable for your responsibilities. Again, in education debate in opposition time, I have lost count of the times that I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to provide time in Scottish Government time to debate fully the whole range of areas in education. I would hate to suggest that it is political opportunism that has meant that we have not had those debates in Government time. In the time that I have, I want to explore some of the evidence given to our committee and heard elsewhere about perhaps unintended consequences of decisions around subject choices, the local pressure on resources, notably of teachers and support staff, on some of the most disadvantaged young people in our education system. We have heard troubling and compelling evidence from Professor Jim Scott that the way the curriculum for excellence is now being implemented means that the system is less fair for those who are most disadvantaged and that they are paying the price of less equity because of deliberate choices by Government, by Education Scotland, by local authorities and by schools. It is simply not good enough to try and shrug off that evidence. We have heard evidence of routinely greater use of multilevel teaching in classes, increased needs of lack of availability within schools, for young people to travel to college and other schools to access particular subjects. Subject choice is more restricted and not necessarily just the number but the range of subjects. For me, the most concerning increase in young people leaving with no externally examination, qualification or whatsoever, all those things that have been highlighted have a disproportionate impact on the poorest and disadvantaged young people in the system. There are decisions being played out now that have a disproportionate impact on those who are already in a disproportionate battle in equality and injustice. We know, for example, that 75 per cent of those who have looked after young people leave at the end of S4. How is a curriculum that you have to be there for four, five and six to access all of its benefits tailored to their needs? It is not tailored to their needs at all. If he shares my concern that Education Scotland not only has done no quality impact assessment on the choices that are being made by them but continues blithly to argue that there is no cause for concern, I have to be honest here. It is the complacency and the defensiveness that gets to me. There is nothing to see here. They would say that approach. All this while alarm bells are ringing and serious figures in education with no political dog in the fight are expressing their concerns. Education Scotland gives advice to ministers, inspects its own work and does not reflect that teaching a class with assistant higher, national five and national four in the same room presents any difficulties whatsoever. I am telling you that the most advantaged children are not being taught in those circumstances. The most disadvantaged are. That is unacceptable. In conclusion, I say this to the cabinet secretary. I get that many people simply resist change. They misunderstand the decisions on curriculum that are being made. I hear the pushy parents explanation that we shouldn't focus just on qualifications. It is not just about the exams. Even if all of that is true, there is still some truth in the problems that we have got. I believe that the problem is deeper and cannot be wished away. Fewer subjects, a narrow range of choice and the further disadvantage of those who are most vulnerable. The easy bit, frankly, for the cabinet secretary is to delete the concerns in a parliamentary motion. It is a great deal harder to delete the consequences of his choices from the life chances of young people across Scotland. The cabinet secretary should say that we wait until the inquiry completes its work. I seriously hope that, when the cabinet secretary sees the evidence, he stops trying to explain it away. He needs to listen, understand and act, not just test it against his own view but recognise that there may possibly be things going wrong in the system that he did not intend but are having direct consequences for many of our young people. That is not just the timing, not just the parliamentary process that is flung in as a justification for not supporting the motion. That is an issue of the responsibility of serious government to confront and respond to what is happening in the real world at its hand. It is not good enough to respond with cheap points about the process when you have to look at what people across the country are saying about the damage that we are doing possibly to the future of far too many of our young people. I now call James Dornan, who is called by Alison Harris, Mr Dornan. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Given, as many people have already said, the Education and Skills Committee are in the middle of taking evidence on this topic, I do have to wonder why the Conservative Party has decided to take on this debate at this time. I was not going to use this next bit, but thank you all for giving me the opportunity to do so. For the Tories to shed crocodile tears about inequity as ignorance at best and sheer hypocrisy at worst. If it was not, then this debate would be about the causes of poverty and a call for this party, this Parliament, to urge Westminster to A, scrap some of their more damaging policies and B, grant this Parliament all the powers that it requires to deal with this problem and its totality. Oliver Mundell is absolutely outrageous to make that kind of point. Does James Dornan not accept that giving people an inadequate education, a less good quality education than their peers in more affluent communities is going to have an impact on their life chances? I would agree with that point if I thought that that was the case. At FMQs last week, the First Minister was right to point out that a record number of young people are leaving school with five fires or more and that the attainment gap between the richest and poorest is narrowing. That is thanks to policies such as the pupil equity fund, which allows head teachers to use a financial settlement to suit their and establishments' particular needs, rather than a blanket rule of practice that has no flexibility. It is work like this, which will truly allow head teachers to prioritise the needs of pupils of their area, taking into account socioeconomic backgrounds and particular social challenges. The SNP Government is absolutely committed to the needs of vulnerable children, and there are clearly some young people who will need a more targeted support than others, for example those who are coming from a care experience background. The Government has already recognised that demographic by the need for further investment that has pledged £33 million from the attainment Scotland fund, funding that will offer targeted initiatives, activities and educational resources that will aim to improve the educational outcomes for the disadvantaged group of young people. I will do it. Johann Lamont I am very grateful for you to take the intervention. I wonder if you would recognise the argument that I was making, which is not about what the Tories are doing at Westminster, or that I condemn their project in terms of cuts to public services. The danger that we are doing now is amplifying inequality in our communities by some of the choices that have been made around curriculum for excellence, which is unintended or otherwise. We need to address that, because in our communities that we represent are being disadvantaged and disadvantaged more by those choices that have been made. James Dorn, I will give you your time back, Mr Dorn. Thank you very much. It was a long intervention. I will say to Johann Lamont that I would be happy to agree with that if we would go through the process that you are already in the middle of. If you had come back here after the committee debate, the committee discussion, you came back with evidence that proved that, then it would be very difficult for us in those benches to say otherwise. However, what has happened here is that it is for political reasons. There is nothing else. I am not saying that the speeches that others have made have been for political reasons, but this motion here today has been brought for political reasons. There is no other possible reason that could be. I can see some of my colleagues to my left wanting me to specifically talk solely about subject choices, but having served as a convener of education for some time, I am more than aware that a child's education is not quite so one-dimensional. Another reason why I am so surprised that Liz Smith has brought forward this debate at such an early stage is because she has heard, before she has heard the vast bulk of evidence, she has heard time and time again the education of children within different socioeconomic areas as a very complex one, and the rest of us know that too. A debate last year, I had the joy of sharing some stories about young people in my constituency who had achieved outstanding results in their exams. However, what surprised me about many of the stories was the element of cross-establishment working between schools in my Glasgow kids' car constituency. Many kids travelled between schools to participate in various subjects with excellent outcomes. It means that schools benefit from offering a well-attended subject and pupils are able to utilise that flexible approach in order to study the subjects that are most suitable to their needs. Indeed, in 2017, one such pupil in S4 attended Holyrood secondary for her higher Italian, Kingsport secondary for her higher Esau, while being taught higher Spanish and national five maths at her own school, St Margaret Mary's. That is the point of curriculum for excellence. It is about a tailored educational system that has a flexible approach to learning. I do not dispute for a minute that some parents may have concerns over six subjects being offered in S4, but I repeat the First Minister's words from last Thursday. Higher education does not simply finish in S4. A wide range of subjects are open to pupils as they progress through S5 and S6. As the cabinet secretary said earlier, the broad general education has been improved up to S3. What matters is the qualifications and awards that pupils leave school with, not just the subjects that they study at S4. Although the Government has promised to monitor the reform Scotland report and the Education and Schools Committee's review, it is absolutely right that we know that education does not end in it. The evidence says that more young people are leaving school with qualifications, more young people are leaving school with five fires or more, and more young people are going into positive destinations, including university. I want to take a minute to examine the wording of this Tory motion. You have got exactly one minute. I represent a constituency that has a number of those more deprived communities. In a recent visit by the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, Professor Philip Alston visited a school in Glasgow and asked the children who should help the poor people. He was answered by one child with simply the rich people. A boy John Root was in the garden saying, I get hungry because I was smelling other people's food. The most unfair thing is that the Government knows what families are going through, and it decides not to do anything about it. That is a perfect example of inequity that exists between schools in more affluent areas and those in more deprived communities, which clearly affects education performance. I say to Scotland's Tories, do not insult this Parliament by telling us that this is how we should be educating the poor. Tell us how you will fight alongside us to ensure that those children are not poor in the first place. Thank you very much. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to thank my colleague Liz Smith for bringing this important debate to the chamber. It is so important because the options available for Scotland's children as they progress through school are, sadly, narrowing. The curriculum for excellence was introduced with the intention of improving the Scottish education system, a system that was renowned internationally as one of the best. Unfortunately, evidence has shown that the curriculum's implementation has been lacking in accountability, communication and credible management. What is worse, the response to this evidence so far from the SNP and Education Scotland has been utter denial. In recent years, there has been a narrowing of subject choice for children at the senior phase of their education. Those entering S4 now take on average fewer subjects than they did before the curriculum for excellence was introduced. It is abundantly clear to most members in the chamber what effect limiting the horizon can have on a child. How has that happened? Part of the transition from the old system to the new one involves changing the structure through which education is delivered. Previously, under the 222 system, children in S3 and S4 could take a breadth of subjects before focusing on their hires in fifth year. Having now switched to S3 and S3, where the first three years are known as broad general education, we are faced with problems. Evidence submitted to the education committee highlights the disjointedness between the first three years and the new senior phase. The SQA has said that their qualifications starting in S4 require 160 hours of teaching per subject to pass. Previously, this time could be split over two years, but now schools are cramming those 160 hours into one, meaning that the seven and eight subject slots have been squeezed down to six and sometimes even five. I have heard members say that we are focusing too much on S4 and that subjects are available throughout the whole senior phase. To them, I would say that the idea of a child who has got a flavour of Spanish and says S1 to S3 and who was then forced to drop it because they only had six slots in S4 would somehow pick it up again later in the senior phase is totally unrealistic. I thank the member for giving way. I can understand why there is a debate about many of the things that the member is talking about, but can I just be clear? Is the member calling for more regulation from the centre of what schools do or less? Ms Rallon, thank you for that question. We are calling for a review of the structure. I now want to turn to a particularly worrying development. We have been hearing increased reports of multi-level classes. Science teachers, for example, have pointed out the stark differences in the content between national 4, 5 and higher physics qualifications, yet they are often expected to teach all three of those in one class time slot. In last week's education skills and committee, I asked the panel whether courses are actually built to sustain that kind of learning. In their answers, William Hardy highlighted the impracticality of teaching what, in some cases, are very different courses in the same class and expecting the same quality of education. Dr Allan Britton said that no teacher would choose to do this. Professor Jim Scott said that the extent of tri-level teaching is worrying. However, Education Scotland was asked about this when it gave evidence to the committee. At one point, its strategic director said that children could receive the same education experience in a multi-level class as they would in a same level class. I find that response quite surprising. That brings me on to the final section of my contribution to this debate. The reduction in subject choice for Scottish children upsets me, but what really angers me is the frank denial from the SNP and Education Scotland on the seriousness of the issue. In that same committee, Education Scotland suggested that the narrowing of subject choice was, in fact, a deliberate decision so that children could focus on a depth of learning. However, educational experts have been very clear that this narrowing is an unintentional consequence of the curriculum for excellence. Similarly, responding to Ross Greer on the sad reality that some children have to travel from one school to another to take certain subjects, the strategic director claimed that the motivation from travelling to such a class more than makes up for missing any other activities like sport, drama or music. That very statement is a shameful denial of the problems. Last week, at First Minister's questions, the denials kept coming. The First Minister was questioned on the topic of subject choice nine times by five different MSPs from across the chamber, and in each answer she just repeated the same one statistic, irrespective of the question. The SNP are acting like there isn't a problem, while there is a problem. I know that I speak for parents, teachers and educationalists around Scotland when I say that we need to address that head-on. No more denials, no more deflections or downright ridiculous excuses. Let's address that problem before we fail a generation. I guess that there is quite a lot that we can agree on today. Education should be based on excellence and equity, the best possible education at all levels, and the principles that are enshrined in the policy aims of curriculum for excellence. All of those appear in the original motion and are not amended. We are focused today on subject choice, and I think that the Conservatives want young people to have as wide a choice as possible in each school. I feel that that is quite a narrow topic, and they are certainly entitled to debate it. However, I would also like to make some wider but related points on the issue of school pupils and subject choices. The number of subjects available in a school is important, but so is the question of what those subjects are. We need to ask ourselves how and why pupils choose particular subjects or, as well, we would like to choose particular subjects that are not available. How much should we as a society be trying to influence pupils and how much should their choice be completely free? The economy committee of which I am a member is concluding an inquiry into the construction sector, and previously we published a report on the gender pay gap. In both of those inquiries, it has been blatantly obvious that we are not attracting enough women into STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering, mathematics and, for that matter, not enough men into childcare and primary teaching. Efforts have been made to change this, but success has been limited. For whatever reason, pupils are still choosing careers, which follow fairly traditional gendered lines, and that, in turn, is reflected in their subject choice at school. I think that we are all struggling to know how to change that. In 2017-18, at the higher level, the SQA told us that 90 per cent of those doing engineering science were male, 84 per cent doing computing science were male, 97 per cent of those doing fashion and textile technology were female and 97 per cent doing childcare and development were also female. Families, peers and teachers can all have an influence on the choices of school subjects and careers that our young people make. Frankly, we need our schools sometimes to be challenging some of the assumptions that are around our young people and that they are picking up from elsewhere. We all know some of the wrong assumptions that are floating around. For example, construction always involves being out in a muddy building site, engineering is a very physical job and better for boys, doctors and lawyers are better jobs than engineers. Let me finish this point. In an ideal world, everyone would go to university, the best people do not go into construction. All of those are wrong assumptions and they need to be challenged. Johann Lamont I agree with you that we need to challenge those. If the evidence to the education committee concludes with a view that confirms Professor Jim Scott's position, which is that the most disadvantaged are now more disadvantaged than they were before, would you want to act to get the Scottish Government to address that problem? John Mason That is a bit hypothetical. One of the points today is what will the education committee come up with as a conclusion. I would have to say by way of example my own constituency, which is quite mixed, as members will know. One of the big challenges is parental involvement. One of the schools that is doing good work in this area has used some of the extra money, the PEF money, to involve families. When families are more involved in education, that makes as big a difference as other things. My main argument here is that that is wider than just the number of subjects. There are a whole lot of factors in here, apart from just the number of subjects. I think that I will finish it and do a lot more and then come in afterwards. To continue my theme, during Scottish apprenticeship week recently, I visited an excellent company in my constituency who provided electrical and other services. I met two variable apprentices, one older and one younger. It was particularly interesting listening to the younger one as he spoke of his experience at his school—I do not know which one it was—where the emphasis seemed to be on going to university and the impression was given to pupils that everything else, apart from university, was second rate. We need to help our young people to understand that this kind of thinking is wrong. We use the term positive destinations, which is meant to include a range of destinations, but in practice we can send out the signal that academic is best. The roofer who fixes my tenement roof is just as important and valuable as a lawyer or accountant. After all, if 100 per cent of our young people went to university, that would be a failure for us as a society. Of course, each young person should have an equal opportunity to go to university no matter what their background is, but it is not the right path for every young person. It is good in Scotland that we have a tradition of a broad general education, and I studied Latin up to fourth year and chemistry to fifth year, neither of which appears to have done me much good since. I think that the only subject that I actually enjoyed at school was maths, but I guess that it would not have been healthy for me only to study that, so I was forced to study other things. However, I think that we as a society have a responsibility to encourage our young people into sectors where there are likely to be skills shortages in the future and preferably also where there are good pay and career opportunities. I studied accountancy at university because I wanted to become an accountant. I did not just choose the subject in some kind of random way, although I have to say that I did not know much about it because accountancy was not even available at the school that I went to. I am running out of time. In conclusion, I agree that the number of subjects available for an individual young person to choose from is important, but it is only one angle on the topic of subjects and choices that ways as society needs to take a much wider look at the whole question of what subjects are being chosen and why. We need to consider if those are the best subjects for the individual young person and for societies as a whole. Let me start this afternoon by echoing Ross Greer's call for more time on this debate. Frankly, I think that the process point about the stage of the committee process is beneath the cabinet secretary. The evidence that the committee heard was really so stark and shocking that it shows that Parliament is fleet of foot to look at what we learned. If the cabinet secretary wanted to devote a whole week of parliamentary time, I am sure that that would be welcomed across the chamber on this very important topic. I am as concerned as any Opposition member about the narrowing choice of subjects in school at S4 level. I was quite taken with Jenny Gilruth's contribution earlier on when she gave us her family history on this, saying that her and her sisters, if I heard correctly, were offered seven, eight and nine choices of subjects, but then told us that she was satisfied now that pupils are being offered six. If I understood her correctly that not many of us apart from her understand the education process, I would ask her why it is that some of the most affluent areas in Scotland, their state schools, are offering pupils the opportunity to study seven and eight qualifications. Why is that? I made the point in my contribution that there has always been a variation in the system. Going back to standard grade 20 years ago, it has always been there. On the point of deprivation, you need to look at a more broader range of qualifications. For example, yesterday, in our contribution in our debate, Daniel Johnson told us that he supported the wider definition of education. Ian Gray said that it was not all about exam passes. Jenny Marra did not listen to some of her Labour colleagues. Jenny Marra? I do not disagree with anything that she said. I hope that I might get that time back. The disparity that we see on a national scale is worrying. It simply cannot be right in my view that pupils in welfare areas of the country have a greater range of choices than those in other communities. Schools are clear that they offer a limited range of topics because that is all they can afford with the staffing and resources that they have. The cut of more than 3,000 teachers across Scotland since the SNP came to power is one of the Government's greatest failings. My own city of Dundee has been hit hard by teacher cuts. Since 2009, when the SNP took control of Dundee City Council, we have lost 183 teachers in total, with more to come. A massive 160 of those teachers have been lost to our secondary schools in Dundee. Things are so bad that schools struggle to recruit teachers in core subjects such as English, maths and science. In a city where we are already struggling with attainment, we see that the SNP is planning to cut a further £3 million from the education budget. On top of that, teachers are under further pressure with the move to the almost universally unpopular faculty heads management structure. With schools under that kind of pressure, the last thing that our pupils need is a restriction in subject choices. In Dundee, where we really need the opportunities that are offered by a good and solid education, five of our eight secondary schools responded to the Reform Scotland survey to confirm that they only offer the six subjects in S4. The three schools that did not respond to that survey have offered the same choice of six subjects over the past few years. Then we discovered that it is SNP council policy to offer only six subjects. What the cabinet secretary said about supporting head teachers and variants, I say to him loudly and clearly today, if he is listening, that those options are not available to pupils, parents and schools or head teachers in Dundee because the SNP council has said very clearly that there will be six subjects right across the city in S4. The S1-6 curriculum guideline states issued by the council, the senior phase model that we have adopted as a city allows for vertical and lateral progression, pupils can study a maximum of six subjects at national four and five in S4. We should be under no illusions that such a restriction really does limit the choices and outcomes for pupils. I repeat the point again. I do not understand the SNP's assertion that a narrowing of the curriculum is good when we see some of the most affluent areas of this country offering their pupils an opportunity to take eight, seven and eight qualifications at S4. I thought that Professor Jim Scott's evidence was really quite striking and his initial research indicates that, in an environment where only six choices are allowed, the average number of qualifications attempted is only five and that is worrying in itself and it is a point that is yet to be addressed in this debate. Those children with ambitions to study medicine or engineering are being left with no choice but to give up the benefits of art subjects and to start specialising early in order to gain the qualifications that they need for their chosen career. As Professor Scott said in that submission, any significant reduction in the uptake of modern languages, expressive arts and the STEM subjects has the potential to impair the academic, scientific, cultural and business-related capacity of Scotland. As everyone in this chamber knows, this debate is about education but it is about our wider economic capabilities as well. We know that our children are being offered limited subject choices, not because the Scottish Government believes that perhaps that is right, although the debate today might contest that, but because they are too set in their ways and I think that they are too arrogant to look objectively at the situation in front of us. I believe that the cabinet secretary must now act to turn around the collapsing budgets, the crisis in recruitment and the narrowing of subject chances and life choices that his SNP mismanagement is inflicting on our schools. I would like to call Clare Adamson to be followed by Graham Simpson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I rise to speak somewhat dismayed at some of the arguments that have been used in the chamber this afternoon. I served in this education culture committee in session 4 of the Parliament and much of what we have been discussing today was raised in evidence at this time. That was the opening of my speech last year and I am even more dismayed that we are still talking about some of the same issues and that the understanding of curriculum for excellence does not seem to have made its way through to some areas of the chamber. If I can quote Terry Lannigan of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland in 2012, he said that the new system is not about going for eight or nine qualifications in one year, it is a continuum of learning. Those are not just words, the new to all qualifications will and do build on experience and outcomes in broad general education. It was always intended, and from the work that was done in the criticism of the system that was there before, that it should be a depth of learning that was there for young people, not a breadth of learning. Although I absolutely agree that the evidence shows that the number of subjects have reduced in certain areas, I have yet to see any evidence of the disadvantage for young people. I want to use the evidence that the committee has already heard to demonstrate that, but in the context of what has been said in the past, Terry Lannigan also said that the 2 plus 2 versus 3 plus 3 issue is a false dichotomy. Broad general education goes up to S3, but that does not mean that there is a choice before that stage. Indeed, personalisation and choice are an entitlement of curriculum for excellence. We have known that the criticism of the previous one was that two-term dash to higher, but we also know that curriculum for excellence offers an opportunity for pupils to go straight to higher courses for S3 to start the process into the NAP-405 work that the young people will do. That is the whole basis of it being adapted and personalised to the young person involved. I heard about comparisons with the private sector. Some private sector schools did not even sit at standard grades if pupils went straight to higher, so there has always been differing views of how that should be taken forward. Terry Lannigan's most important comment that I want to highlight today is that, if at the end of all that, all that we have done is replace the exams, then we have not changed the pedagogical approach in schools or what year youngsters make their future choices, we will not have achieved curriculum for excellence. Curriculum for Excellence was supported by all parties across the chamber. Is the cut-up a little bit about the evidence? I am a little bit concerned that we are having this debate in the context of a committee inquiry because it is a very important committee inquiry and we are only partway through that process. The optics of this could be that people's minds have been made up before all the evidence has been heard. It is really important to listen to all that. I want to balance some of the things that have been said about the evidence today. Dr Shae Peer, I was mentioned by both Liz Smith and by Ian Gray, and she talked about what point pressed. I absolutely agree that there is an arrowing and that it has been linked to SIMD areas. When pressed as to what evidence there was of disadvantage to those young people, she said, the question is do we have the evidence that, in our choice, has a negative effect? Overall, we will have to look and wait and see to have a look at the trends in a couple of years' time. While I get the concern and probably share the concern of the members around the chamber who have mentioned this, I have yet to see how we are disadvantaging our young people, especially in the context that universities and colleges' admissions have increased up by 4 per cent last year. The attainment and lever destinations are 92.9 per cent of our pupils in positive destinations. It has gone up, and I share Labour's concern about counting zero hours contracts in this, but that is a small percentage of what the positive destinations are for our young people. If we look at some of the other evidence that has been given, Alasdair Sim of the University of Scotland has particularly said that an individual's ability to present a good range of qualifications is core to university entries. One of the good things about curriculum for excellence and something that resonates strongly with what we are trying to do at university is that through the experience of curriculum for excellence, pupils develop a broader attitude about what I referred to as well as subject knowledge. That helps to get people who have a rounded expertise as well as subject knowledge and I support that intention. What we are seeing is universities looking for an experience that is not just about what the pupils have achieved in a certain number of qualifications, it is looking about the bag of qualifications that they leave S5 or S6 with in the final stages of curriculum for excellence. We have also heard a lot about the opportunities and choices, but John Mackay said in the creativity of CFE that we are able to see where computing science teacher is not in a school, but that colleges have been introducing to Dean Angus College now to an HNC higher level, so the teacher is therefore free to develop more courses for more youngsters to meet their needs. The pupils are attaining the qualification that they want through the college system. That is the advantage of what is happening. I wait to be convinced to see—although I share the concerns—that there is the problem that has been highlighted by other members around there. I look forward to concluding our committee's work in this area. It is a somewhat extraordinary situation, is it not, when we have a Cabinet Secretary for Education saying that this Parliament should not debate education? Education should never be off limits for members in this chamber. It is the job of Parliament to debate serious issues, and this is a serious issue. If it was not a serious issue, we would not have the education committee looking at it. If it was not a serious issue, we would not have tabled the motion that Liz Smith has done today. In March 2013, the Commission on School Reform, which I was lucky enough to sit on, published a detailed document called Bidiverse Means. It was a serious attempt to suggest ways in which we could improve Scotland's educational performance, but nothing has happened since to do that. Our paper started off with two quotes. Bidiverse means that we arrive at the same end and never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. In other words, trust people to do a job and allow them to do it in different ways. It was clear then and clear now that the education system in Scotland is too uniform. That is why the Scottish Conservatives have been arguing for years that we need greater diversity in the system and that we need to empower properly head teachers. Curriculum for excellence was meant to take the shackles off. It should have led to greater choice, not less. Last week, subject choice was brought up several times at First Minister's Questions and, frankly, she floundered. I looked around the chamber and I spotted Mike Russell on the front bench. He is a very bright man. He is obviously well educated and I couldn't help wondering if a young Mike Russell going through school now would emerge with the breadth of knowledge of the current Mike Russell. I doubt it. The same could be said for other equally educated members like Liz Smith, Ian Gray and many others. We have a narrowing of the curriculum and we have kids being taught subjects at different levels in the same classes. You cannot possibly argue that that's a good thing. We've already heard about Professor Jim Scott's evidence. He said that the narrowing of subject choice was like a virus that spread around the north of Scotland with outbreaks in the south and south west. He warned that we're in danger of a generation going past who have not had a good experience in education. He said, quote, I've trouble saying to you that anything is improving this at all. Professor Scott identified five areas where Scottish education is struggling, modern languages, ICT, arts technologies and in science technology, engineering and maths. There's a postcode lottery throughout Scotland and within authorities. Let me take South Lanarkshire where I live. I asked the council for the figures. No, I'm going to give figures in South Lanarkshire. It's an SNP council. The number of choices offered at S4 goes from nine at Stone Law High, eight at Trinity, St Andrews and St Brides and Holy Cross, seven at Calder Glen, Calderside, Duncan Rigg, Larkhall, Lesmahago, St John Ogilvie, Straven and Udingston, down to six, Biggar, Carl Luke, Hamilton Grammar and Lanark. That's all the high schools, quite a range. I should sound a word of caution here and the cabinet secretary may agree with me. While Stone Law shows nine in theory, pupil could access nine national qualifications. It also captures their activities such as Duke of Edinburgh, Sultire Awards and so on that pupils can do within the timetable, whereas Hamilton Grammar, which only had six, doesn't reflect the wider range of options available. Nevertheless, you have to ask why should a kid at Biggar not have the same opportunities at St Andrews and St Brides in East Kilbride? Maybe the question is, why don't they? Here, teacher shortages are a large part of the problem, as Jenny Marra said. We just don't have enough people to teach across the wide variety of subjects that could be offered. We've known about this for years and yet nothing, it seems to me, has been done. Last week, the First Minister trumpeted exam results as evidence that curriculum for excellence is working. She was kind of missing the point, because is it really? The percentage of youngsters leaving school with no qualifications has declined across almost all authorities from 2009-10 to 2012-13, but unfortunately, as Ian Gray said, the opposite is true after the introduction of curriculum for excellence, so the least able appear to be suffering the most under curriculum for excellence. I thought Aberdeenshire Council summed it up quite well in their submission to the committee. They said, clearly, limitations in subject choice restrict the choices that people can make and can lead them into choosing subjects in which they have little interest. This can affect their motivation and, overall, attainment. The spice paper this week confirmed that restricting subject choice leads to kids sitting subjects that they're just not interested in, and that can affect them for the rest of their lives. That, cabinet secretary, is why that matters. Ruth Maguire I think that we all agree that Scottish education should be based on the principles of excellence and equity, and it's, of course, important to be assured that this is the case. The cabinet secretary and colleagues have made observations about the timing of this debate, not about debating education but about the timing of this specific debate. Choices have already been made for next year, and the Education and Skills Committee inquiry is not finished. Those are facts. Viewers of this debate might wonder if the sensible and respectful way to proceed would have been to let the committee do its job and have a more informed debate in June after the inquiry. The Education and Skills Committee is yet to hear from and crucially question a range of important witnesses, including representatives of the professional associations, directors of education, local government and indeed the Scottish Government. In everything that we do in this place, we must properly consider and scrutinise evidence, and I sincerely hope that we can have the opportunity to return to this matter when the Education and Skills Committee has done its job and had the opportunity to review the full range of evidence and its report is available to all of us. The purpose of the curriculum is to provide our young people with the skills, knowledge and experiences that will prepare them for lives beyond school and provide them with the best possible opportunities to fulfil their potential. Under curriculum for excellence, there are no set notions about the number or types of qualifications taken at each senior phase. The guiding principle is that qualifications are taken at the appropriate stage for the young person over the three years of the senior phase. It is for schools to make decisions about the best model for their young people, and, of course, that will lead to variation. National guidelines encourage flexibility and enable schools to consider alternative approaches that best meet pupils' needs. That is right. For example, that might include following courses at college, through consortium arrangements with other schools and through digital learning. Our focus must be on the whole school experience, the range of qualifications that are achieved and the destinations of young people when they leave school. Responding to the committee, one local authority reports that the greater flexibility of the timetable has been matched by increasing option choice. Alongside traditional courses, schools now offer wider achievement opportunities, ranging from vocational qualifications to leadership and employability awards, many of which are also certified, and courses offering different types of work related to learning. Importantly, they also state that, while the curriculum offer has been changing, examination performance has held up, continuing to improve steadily, as before. That matters the qualifications and awards that young people leave school with matters, not just what they study in S4. The percentage of pupils who get qualifications—I will. John Lamont My concern is that an increasing number of young people are leaving with no qualification whatsoever, and it will be disadvantaged young people who are suffering most. Ruth Maguire If that was the case, I would assure that concern. Of course I would. The percentage of pupils who get qualifications at level 5 and above is up. The percentage of pupils who leave with hires is up. The wealth-related attainment gap for higher level is at an all-time low. A record number of school leavers are in higher education. When you look at attainment when pupils leave school, you find two things. Attainment overall is up since 2009-10, and the gap between the most and least deprived is narrowing. Curriculum for Excellence has transformed learning experiences for children and young people across Scotland. It recognises that children are unique and empowers teachers to create learning that makes sure that every child gets the support, stretch and challenge that they deserve. It is the right approach for Scotland. The OECD has endorsed Scotland's curriculum as resting on a very contemporary view of knowledge and skills and on widely accepted tenants of what makes for powerful learning. Curriculum for Excellence has gone through a significant period of initial implementation, which brought with it a period of intensive change, particularly for secondary schools. The priority now should be to allow the new curriculum to bed in to make appropriate adjustments, but to avoid the type of wholesale curriculum change that would simply increase the workload for teachers. As I said at the beginning, we all agree that Scottish education should be based on the principles of excellence and equity, and we need to be assured that that is the case. Let's do that the right way. In everything that we do in this place, we must properly consider and scrutinise the evidence. I repeat my hope that we can have the opportunity to return to the subject matter when the Education and Skills Committee has had the opportunity to review the full range of evidence and when its report is available to all of us. Thank you very much. I will now move to closing speeches. I call Ian Gray to wind up for the Labour Party. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Ruth Maguire and Claire Adamson, too, before I talked about the choice and personalisation that Curriculum for Excellence allows. That is a good thing. I am very much in favour of choice and personalisation, and our schools have not happened for a very long time. I remember decades ago sitting in a school in Mozambique speaking to a colleague who was a Soviet teacher. He asked me about how our schools were organised. I knew how Soviet schools were organised. The kind of school that we were in, every pupil in that year, had exactly the same course in which they followed the same subjects. In fact, across the entire Soviet Union, on a particular day, they would be studying the same page in their textbook. In order to move on to the next year, they had to pass all their subjects. He explained that to me, which I knew. I explained to him that in the schools that I was used to working in, pupils studied the same courses for a couple of years, and then, after that, they chose their personalised curriculum. He looked at me and said, that is just not possible. It was a degree of personalisation that he thought was just impractical, that he could not run or organise a school on that basis. I tried to convince him that it was possible, but I could not convince him. It struck me then how different the two systems were, although, in a sense, they had similar objectives. Both were seeking a principle of equality, one by giving everybody the same course and the Scottish system by allowing individuals to create the curriculum that suited them. I know that I favoured the Scottish approach. I know that I was proud of it then, even though I could not get him to understand it. Later, when I returned to teaching in a Scottish school, I was part of improving further impersonalisation when we introduced standard grade, which was very much a teacher-led innovation at the time. Some of those principles, nobody is really arguing with any of that, and curriculum for excellence is supposed to improve all of that. However, we have talked a bit about the evidence that the committee has already received. On Monday, as Jenny Gilruth referred to, we did hold focus groups with teachers and parents in Dunfermlyn. A very striking focus group with the teachers—around 10 teachers or so at a table with myself and Mr Allan—was there, too. I have to say that it was very clear that those teachers did not feel as if they were in the lead in what was happening in their schools. They talked about some of them, their subjects, being pushed out of the curriculum. Yes, by the creation of more options for the young people in their schools, but by the narrowing of the number of choices that they could make from that offer. They spoke particularly vociferously about the consequence that had happened of the three-year senior phase, which was more multi-level teaching. Earlier today, in education questions, I know that the Deputy First Minister said that, in his day at school, there was multi-level teaching. That is absolutely true, but I say to him that there is a big difference between general and credit classes being taught together with the chance of young people moving between the two levels. What is happening in schools now, which in many instances according to those teachers, is four-level teaching with national 4, national 5, higher and advanced higher all being taught at the same time in the same classroom in a class of up to 30 pupils. That is a very different animal altogether. Mr Gray has generously reduced my age significantly because I was not in the system when general and credit was going through the system. I predate that. However, the point that I think has to also be reflected is the point that Mr Dornan made about the range of options that are now available. For example, for collaboration between schools in the delivery of a broader range of advanced higher opportunities for young people, where the number of young people in individual schools simply cannot justify the creation of a specific course in an individual school, but the curriculum offer is still there for young people. As I say, this was the teachers' experience of what was happening in their own schools. However, the biggest difference—I do not want to lose the time for this—was the differences in the curricular structure in their schools. It was far more than just that some offered six, some seven and some eight subjects at S4. The truth is that a number of those schools are still working into a 2 plus 2 plus 2 model. Most of them said that pupils made their course choices at the end of S2, not at the end of S3 at all. One described their curricular model as 2 plus 1, 2 plus 1. However, what was clear was that those teachers did not feel that they had had any part in the design of those structures. Those were management-led decisions that, to their view, constantly changed and did not leave them feeling empowered but rather left them feeling embattled. They did not feel any more empowered than the teachers that Jenny Marra spoke about in Dundee where the curricular structure is imposed from the centre across the local authority. I accept that that was a small group of evidence, but it was powerful evidence and it does reflect other evidence that the committee has heard. Earlier today, in education questions, the Deputy First Minister tried to characterise concern about those issues as moral panic. Today, this afternoon, he certainly characterised it as political opportunism. It is not. To hear those stories from our schools creates a moral and political imperative—not a panic, but an imperative—that we must listen, we must respond, we must do that in a serious way, and that is all the motion in the amendment that was asked this evening and that is why they should be supported. Just to follow the point that Iain Gray made laterally, the moral panic reference that I raised was a quote from Professor Mark Priestley, a very informed commentator who has been cited extensively in this debate and this question. I cited Professor Priestley because I felt that what it would help us to do is to come to the conclusion that we need to consider the issue seriously. I have indicated that I am perfectly willing to consider this particular issue, but I do not think that we can do justice to it in an afternoon debate in the Scottish Parliament, and not particularly when the Scottish Parliament's education committee is involved in an area of evidence taking, which, in the contributions that we have heard today, covers disputed territory about what is the right way to proceed in this respect. There are a number of different areas of disputed evidence that I am going to talk about in the course of my summing up. Liz Smith, notwithstanding that, cabinet secretary, do you acknowledge that in 2008, in 2013, in 2017 and in 2018, parliamentarians in this chamber have been on record about raising pretty serious concerns about this very issue? There was broad political support around the design of curriculum for excellence, and I was reminded by Gordon MacDonald in his reading out of a BBC report from 2013 of the curricular model that is now being challenged here today, which was a combination of particular subjects and a broader general education, which I have been conscious to stress to Parliament, has been deeper and more extensive. Delivering more breath to young people within Scotland was the model that was envisaged at the time of the creation of curriculum for excellence, so that is not a particularly surprising point. I think that one of the issues that has emerged from this debate is a few issues that I am going to touch on. The first is about the question of prescription from the centre or local discretion. I think that college knows that I am very much on the side of local discretion. I found it odd that Graham Simpson talked through almost attacked the notion of local distinction in the schools of South Lanarkshire. He seemed to be criticising the fact that that exists, but if we have a system, would Mr Mundell just allow me to finish my point? If we are having a system that empowers schools—that is very much what I want to do—and I think that that is what the Conservatives wanted to do, we will have to be prepared to tolerate distinction and difference among individual schools. Or we will end up not quite in the model that Mr Gray talked about with his Mozambique example, but we will be edging closer towards the Mozambique example than the system of school empowerment and teacher agency, which I want to make sure is at the heart of our reforms. Of course, I will give it a shot. Paul Hurmondale Thank you for giving way. Does the cabinet secretary not recognise that there is a difference between the differences between different schools because people have made a choice and a pattern that looks like there is a difference between different schools based on parental income and on disadvantage? Is that not worrying him? Am I going to say that? That is worrying. That is a point that my amendment seeks to acknowledge. That is a worrying issue, and I want to explore that. That is part of the evidence that I am concerned about, and I am exploring that. The issue that I raise is that we have to, as a Parliament—this is why we need a considered debate about these issues—we need to decide where we are sitting on the court, which is why I want to wait for the Education and Skills Committee to report. We have to decide how far we are along the line of prescription or local discretion. The accusation has been made that the curriculum has been narrowed. I do not think that that is the case by design, because what we have seen is the creation of a broad general education that covers a more extensive part of the school experience for young people, where they have the opportunity to study subjects across eight curricular areas to a deeper level for a longer period than before. That has been coupled, and that will create timetabling challenges for schools by an expansion of opportunities through school and college partnerships that develop in the young workforce agenda, which everybody in here supports, and by the national progression awards. I go to schools and find that schools explain to me that some of those initiatives are creating much better destinations for young people from backgrounds of deprivation than would ever be provided by a range of opportunities in the traditional subjects. I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. The pupils and parents in Galloway and Western Friest would quite simply like to know whether a reduction in subject choice S4 increases or decreases pupil choice at S5, S6 and further education, and ultimately their preferred career pathway. I do not think that it affects it one bit, because we are talking about a three-year senior phase in which young people have the opportunity to select a number of subjects to ensure that they have good strong lever qualifications, which is what brings me on to the ultimate test, which is what are young people leaving our education system with. On every measure, I think that we have reason to be confident in what our education system is achieving. I was criticised earlier on for talking about the increase in hires achieved, but that is of note. We have seen the increase in vocational qualifications. The number of pupils who have attained vocational qualifications at SQF level 5 and above has increased from 7.3 per cent to 14.8 per cent. We have also seen the number of young people who are choosing to stay on at school longer, increasing significantly to ensure that they have the opportunity to take part in that deeper learning. Amongst all of this debate, I think that we have got to recognise that there are some significant issues that we have to decide upon. Do we want to leave it to educationalists to decide on those issues and those questions at local level? Is that where the priority should lie? Where educationalists are taking these decisions? Or is Parliament suddenly going to start prescribing them? That is an issue that we need to be clear about, because, in my view, we should be empowering our schools to enable informed decisions to be taken. I do not understand what the rationale would be for us to in some way prescribe that. We have got to recognise that, in the foundations of curriculum for excellence, there would be a change to the way in which the education system operated and how it was perceived. Some of the comments that Gordon MacDonald made and some of the comments that John Mason made are comments that reflect the fact that we need to educate and inform the wider community about the outcomes that are achieved in our education system. That is what I am committed to engaging about. We will do so when we hear the further information that we receive from the education committee in due course. The Government will engage actively to ensure that we have an education system that meets the needs of young people and that delivers on the expectations of them and all of their families. Thank you, and I call on a murder phraser to wind up our debate. This has been a very helpful debate on the important subject of subject choice, and I am grateful to all the members from across the chamber who have contributed to it. As a number of speakers have mentioned, this is an issue that has been highlighted in recent weeks, both in the report produced last week by Reform Scotland, headed the accidental attainment gap and also in evidence to this Parliament's Education and Skills Committee over a number of weeks. The first point to make is that what is absolutely clear from the evidence is that there is a problem that we need to address. We have heard that from Professor Jim Scott of Dundee University, Keir Bloomer, one of the authors of the curriculum for excellence, Marina Shapira of Stirling University, Alan Britton at Glasgow University, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Parent Organization Connect, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers and one in three schools who responded to the Education and Skills Committee survey. I do not think that it is credible simply to dismiss all the evidence and say that there is no problem. What was disappointing about much of the debate from the SNP benches, from their contributions, was that it seemed to be denying that there was any problem at all that is needed to be addressed. That prompted, of course, a well-deserved scolding from Johann Lamont of the Cabinet Secretary and she was right to do so, because in looking at the evidence, there is a problem and we should be debating it. What the Reform Scotland report told us is that where once most state schools would allow pupils to take seven or eight standard grades based on their individual ability, the majority of schools now offer only six subjects at S4 and, in a few schools, that is as low as five. What is most concerning about those statistics, as Ross Greer very fairly said in his contribution, is that that impacts most on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. In the most deprived areas, just one in 10 schools offer 12 advanced hires or more. In the most affluent areas, seven out of 10 schools offer the same range of subjects. There is also a contrast, I think that Oliver Mundell made this point, between schools in urban areas and those in more rural and remote communities. Why does that matter? There are a number of consequences from this reduction in student choice. It means that pupils are not being able to access the subjects that they want. A nationwide survey presented to this morning's meeting of the Education and Skills Committee revealed that 56 per cent of young girls in Scottish schools were denied the opportunity to study their chosen subjects from national four-level onwards. The key subjects being denied were modern studies, French history, human biology and politics. I have certainly had experience in other members' will, too, of being contacted by the parents of pupils in my region who are very concerned that their youngsters cannot access the courses that they want to study. That does not just knock the confidence of the pupil involved, it means that they are unlikely to fulfil their potential—a point very powerfully made by Graham Simpson a few moments ago. One responded to the survey said, and I quote, I was not allowed to take modern studies and another social subject, so I had to take art instead, which I hated. Another said, I was forced to take Spanish, a course that I had no interest in and miss a class that I really enjoy. Pupils are being let down by the current approach, and the evidence tells us that. There are also significant falls in the courses that might have the greatest economic impact. The research shows that between 2013 and 2018, there was an overall decline of some 3,500 entrants in national four and five in the sciences, a decline of around 5,000 in social sciences and an incredible decline in languages of 17,000. I have sat through many debates in this chamber about the economy and about exporting. We have all talked about the importance of exporting. This morning, the First Minister was launching a new initiative on exporting. In every one of those debates, we talk about the importance of exporting and how we need to have pupils learning modern languages in our schools to help to grow export potential. What do we see? A 17,000 drop in pupils studying modern languages is damaging our country's future economic potential. What we see is a wide variation across Scotland. A postcode lottery, as Reform Scotland put it, some local authorities, such as East Reffershire, allow children to sit eight or more exams. In other areas such as Easton Bartonshire or Dumfries and Galloway, we see the decline, even over the past three years, of the number of courses being offered. Most schools are offering only six. We see, as Alison Harris identified, the issue of multi-level teaching. Teachers having to teach different year groups or levels at the same time. In his evidence to the Education and Skills Committee, William Hardy of the Royal Society of Edinburgh stated that this is a particular problem when it comes to science. Professor Scott said that it should be a no-no in science where it is happening. What has gone wrong? Keir Bloomer puts the blame firmly on the interpretation of guidance in relation to curriculum for excellence. He says this. One of the purposes of CFE was to broaden pupils' education, but instead the way in which it is being implemented is narrowing it significantly. There is ample opportunity for pupils to combine practical and academic options when they are unable to sit nine, eight or even seven exams, but when we narrow it down to six or five, there is very little room for manoeuvre. Someone attending a school which allows only a low number of exams to be sat and who leaves after fourth year will find themselves with fewer qualifications than other leavers. Those going on to study hires have a smaller pool of subjects from which to choose. That concludes the unintended consequence of ill-conceived advice. He states bluntly that this is the hallmark of poor management. That answers the point that the cabinet secretary made earlier in the debate and again recently, because, of course, schools should have autonomy, but the problem is that at the moment the schools are struggling with the interpretation of the curriculum and the information being passed down to them, which is not sufficiently clear. Jenny Marra made an important point, too. Let me just make this last point and I will go away. Jenny Marra made an important point that, often, it is councils who will determine the number of subjects, so that the schools themselves have no autonomy. I am sure that the cabinet secretary would agree that that is an unsatisfactory situation. I wonder if Murdo Fraser would share with Parliament what areas of the curricular guidance should be improved to assist schools in the delivery of that subject choice that he is talking about. Murdo Fraser? I thank the cabinet secretary for that. That is precisely why we are calling for his mid-term review for curriculum for excellence to be brought forward, so that we can study particularly what needs to be improved. That is precisely what Keir Hardy has been calling for, and the cabinet secretary should be listening. Keir Hardy, somebody else altogether. Keir Bloomer, Presiding Officer. I thought that he has been calling for it. Those concerns of Keir Bloomer were echoed by William Hardy for the roadside event about giving evidence to the Education and Skills Committee last week, and he referred to Education Scotland issuing new guidance in 2016 on how the broad general education and senior phases knit together. He said that, even the new guidance that is unclear about the extent to which learning in a broad general education phase can prepare young learners for progression to national qualifications. When even one of the architects of curriculum for excellence says that there is a problem with the way it is being interpreted, when we see clear problems with the guidance that is being issued, it is time that the Scottish Government paid attention, because that matters. It matters to parents, pupils and the matters to our economy. In evidence to the committee, one parent, Alice Roddwell, said that her concern was that there would be a knock-on effect on the success and employability of young people in the country for years to come. She said that, unless there are changes, the standing of the Scottish education system will continue to fall in comparison with the rest of the world. Professor Jim Scott put it bluntly when he said that we are in danger of a whole generation going past who have not had a good experience in education. What is to be done? It is time that the Scottish Government took the advice of experts and carried out the delayed mid-session review of curriculum for excellence. That is what Professor Scott recommended. For quite simply, what we have at the moment is not fit for purpose. If we continue with it, too many of our young people will lose out. That is precisely the point that was covered in Ian Gray's amendment this afternoon, calling for this evaluation to be brought forward. I am glad that the Scottish Government has accepted that point and will support that amendment as we will, because that is precisely what we need to be doing. I do not think that we accept the call that we heard from Mr Swinney at the very start. The claim from Mr Swinney is that the issue should be punted into the long grass. We shouldn't be debating it now, as what he said. That is not a new issue. We have been talking about the issue for years. I think that this Parliament cannot debate issues like that. Issues that matter to parents, pupils and teachers across Scotland. What is this Parliament for? What is the point of it? I thought that it was very unwise for Mr Swinney to say at the start of the debate that this was a debate about political opportunism. He had a more emollient term towards the end, but, frankly, this Parliament needs to be about highlighting the real concerns of people in education, and that is precisely what we have been doing this afternoon. What we have seen in this debate is all the opposition parties coming together, raising their concerns from different political perspectives on the route that we are currently going down. I sincerely hope that the Scottish Government will listen to Parliament. Should the motion be passed at decision time with a Labour amendment, I hope that it will stop burying the heads in the sand and start agreeing to take action, because that is what Scotland's pupils deserve. Thank you very much. That concludes our debate on subject choice. The next item is consideration of business motion 17114, in the name of Graham Day on behalf of the bureau, setting out a business programme. I call on Graham Day to move the motion. Move, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. If no one wishes to speak in the motion, the question is that motion 17114 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The next item is consideration of business motion 17115, in the name of Graham Day on behalf of the bureau, on the stage 2 timetable for a bill. I call on Graham Day to move the motion. Move, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. And if no one wishes to speak in the motion, the question is that motion 17115 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. Thank you. The next item is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 17116, on approval of an SSI, and could I ask Graham Day on behalf of the bureau to move this motion? Move, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much. We come now to decision time. The first question is that amendment 17091.4, in the name of John Swinney, which seeks to amend motion 17091, is a preemption for us, just if this amendment is agreed, then the amendment to the name of Ian Gray will fall. The question is that amendment 17091.4, in the name of John Swinney, which seeks to amend motion 17091, in the name of Liz Smith on subject choice be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed. We will move to our vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 17091.4, in the name of John Swinney, is yes, 62, no, 63. There were no abstentions. The amendment is not agreed. The next question is that amendment 17091.2, in the name of Ian Gray, which seeks to amend motion 17091, in the name of Liz Smith on subject choice be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The next question is that motion 17091, in the name of Liz Smith, as amended on subject choice be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are not agreed. We will move to our vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 17091, in the name of Liz Smith, as amended, is yes, 64. There were no votes against. There were 61 abstentions. The motion, as amended, is therefore agreed. The final question is that motion 17116, in the name of Graham Day, on approval of an SSI be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed, and that concludes decision time. We are going to move shortly to members' business, in the name of Fulton MacGregor, on give them time. Before we do so, we will just take a few moments for members and the minister to change seats. Just a few moments.