 Welcome, everyone, to the 17th meeting of the Education and Skills Committee in 2017. Please remind everyone present to turn on mobile phones and other devices onto silent for the duration of the meeting. The first item of businesses is a fourth and final evidence session as part of the committee's inquiry into teacher work force planning for Scotland schools. Today, we will hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and officials from the Learning Directorate Scottish Government. I welcome John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Stuart Robb, Acting Deputy Director and Mick Wilson, Senior Economic Advisor from the Learning Directorate in the Scottish Government. Thank you for coming along today and I understand, Cabinet Secretary, that you will be making a short opening statement. Thank you, convener. I welcome this opportunity to give evidence to the committee and to set out the foundations of the Government's approach to the delivery of workforce planning and education. In Scotland, we have a flexible and child-centred school curriculum, which is part of a wider policy framework to meet the diverse needs of all of our young people at every stage of their journey through life. Young people are educated in modern, accessible buildings and we have an evidence-based approach to improvement, but the most crucial component is to ensure that children get the right support to learn at the right time. Teachers are key to this. Teachers are key to children's achievements at school and to support our ambitions to raise the bar for all and to close the attainment gap. That is why the committee's inquiry into the teaching workforce is important and why ensuring that we have a sufficient supply of high-quality teachers is a key policy priority of the Government. Evidence to the committee falls into two main areas. First, they concern over the skills of newly qualified teachers and, secondly, discussions about the national approach to workforce planning. In relation to teachers' skills, I was concerned by the evidence presented by trainee teachers about their experience of teacher education. I am also concerned by the findings in the research that I published two weeks ago which analysed initial teacher courses and found significant variations in the time spent on key components of the curriculum with the widest variation in the crucial area of literacy. The committee has also identified in its report on additional support for learning, a lack of focus on ASL in initial teacher education and training. I will be meeting with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and the Scottish Council of Deans of Education to consider available evidence in this area and establish how teacher education can be strengthened as a consequence. Improvement is essential, but evidence highlights that teacher education in Scotland is strong. Our universities are of high quality and our own evaluation of teaching Scotland's future indicated that the experience of teacher education programmes, including student placements and the probation scheme is positive. The committee has also heard that initial teacher education is just that, initial. Student teachers need the right foundation from initial education, but they are also entitled to on-going professional development, particularly in the core curricular competencies to foster their confidence and competence. My sense is that this remains an area for further work by government, but also by the GTCS, Education Scotland, local authorities and the Scottish College for Educational Leadership. The committee has also discussed the way in which, in conjunction with partners, we plan for the recruitment of new teachers. We have made a number of improvements to the workforce planning model, including taking into account local authority vacancies, starting the process earlier in the year and asking universities to work together to allocate places. We will continue to refine the approach through the recently reconvened teacher workforce planning working group. To ensure that we have enough teachers in our schools, we have taken steps to maintain teacher numbers, have increased intakes into universities for the sixth year in a row, we are supporting the development of new routes into teaching and, over the last two years, we have invested in the recruitment campaign and will do so again this year. This campaign is a central plank in the Scottish Government's efforts to increase the number of teachers in Scotland. It has a particular focus on STEM subjects this year, and I am delighted that we have seen significant interest from the undergraduates targeted through the campaign in considering a career in teaching. Finally, we need to ensure that our school, educational professionals are empowered and supported to make the most of the opportunities and responsibilities for the benefit of all children. It is my intention, therefore, to seek to issue a next steps paper next month, setting out how we will deliver our ambitions to empower teachers, parents, children and communities. I remain committed to ensuring that everything we do empowers our schools to deliver excellence and equity for all in Scottish education. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. The issue of vacancies, you mentioned there, and there did seem to be some discrepancy about how accurate and up-to-date the vacancy rates were. Is there some way that the Government can ensure that local authorities keep these figures as updated as they possibly can, and should the Government maybe be requesting from them a regular update on the vacancy situation? Obviously, the vacancy position will vary at different stages during the year. I think that the whole question comes down to the frequency with which we consider it necessary to gather that information to inform the workforce planning position. What we do is gather that information via local authorities to inform the teacher workforce planning model and the judgments that are made principally about the intake into initial teacher education. That information will be gathered to inform the process of decision making, which takes place over the latter part of each year from culminating in December. If we gather that information more frequently, I think that I would have to be clear what the purpose of that was—the purpose of it is clear to me just now—is to inform the teacher the intake into initial teacher education. We do that on an annual basis. If we were to gather that information more frequently, we would be faced with issues from local authorities about the degree of administrative burden that we were applying to local authorities to collect information for which there was not a distinct and focused purpose, which there is when we gather it for the teacher workforce model planning exercise. Are you confident that the information that you are getting from the local authorities is as accurate as it could be, or is there any scope for improving the data that we are getting? Obviously, we rely on local authorities to give us the quality information that is required for the teacher workforce planning exercise, and it is in the interests of local authorities to make sure that that data is accurate and to make sure that we have the clearest possible position available to us when we make those judgments. Of course, when we have had that data available to us for the past six years, it has resulted in an increase in the intake into initial teacher education, and that has been the case again for the entry into the forthcoming academic year. Cabinet Secretary, you said in the parliamentary debate a couple of weeks ago, and you have reiterated this morning that you are disappointed by many of the findings in the recent ITE report. Are you surprised by some of the findings given the Donaldson review and the determination that the Scottish Government had at the time when it published its interim report to improve things? The work of the Donaldson review has been taken forward in partnership with the colleges of education to ensure that the recommendations have been put into practice and that the initial teacher education is of sufficient quality. I think that we have got to look at a range of different factors. When we look at the complete university guide, which I was citing in the parliamentary debate, it rated four of our universities in the top seven across the UK for teacher education. In that respect, it is a pretty strong endorsement of the quality and the strength of initial teacher education. However, what the analysis that I published demonstrated was that there is significant variation in the amount of time and focus within individual courses. That merits examination and explanation. I am not going to jump to an immediate conclusion about it just because it is different, because there may well be a legitimate explanation that the universities will marshal for that factor. However, the margin of its range is sufficient to say to me that we need to explore that further to satisfy ourselves. The evidence on the one hand that suggests that there is strength and capability within our colleges of education is the valid piece of evidence to vest upon, given the fact that we have had the data that the Government has produced that suggests variation. Some of the evidence that the committee has heard clearly raises other issues as well. Amongst all those questions, we have to be open to exploring whether or not the colleges of education have, in the design of initial teacher education, taken all the steps that need to be taken to make sure that we can be confident that the foundations of initial teacher education are secure. Can I just pursue that point? It was quite clear in the Donaldson review in 2011 that literacy and numeracy were very specific issues. Donaldson had some recommendations on that. If I just quote to you what you said in your interim review on the report of how Donaldson was being enacted, it was very clear that there were concerns about, I quote, relatively limited literacy and numeracy skills and a lack of in-depth subject knowledge amongst many teachers. That was fairly recent. Could you explain why you think that, given the warnings that were issued in 2011 and what the Scottish Government said itself, why is it that we are still in a scenario where we have quite a number of witnesses telling us that the quality of delivery on literacy and numeracy is really very weak in some areas? The point that the words that Liz Smith used at the latter part of her question in some areas is important for us to remember because I do come back to the fact that we have external validation that suggests that our initial teacher education proposition is strong. We have got to look at all of this evidence together to come to a considered judgment about what needs to be undertaken to ensure our confidence in initial teacher education. Essentially, in and amongst all of this material, we have the testimony that the committee has heard from some candidates. We have got the external validation of the strength of initial teacher education. We have got the Government's report, which suggests quite a substantial range in the focus within initial teacher education, more so on literacy than on numeracy, but certainly quite a range. That, therefore, merits further exploration and examination to give us the confidence that the system that we have in place meets the needs of our education system today. Thank you for that. Obviously, one of the great concerns is that the Scottish standards of literacy and numeracy are not nearly as good as we would like them to be and it has to be set in that context. Where do you think the Scottish Government can play a role in bringing together universities who are autonomous institutions and decide their own courses, the GTC and the local authorities who obviously have an important part to play, not in the actual specific teacher training but in the way that it is managed? How do you, as Cabinet Secretary, envisage the way forward to cut through the problem that we have in literacy and numeracy and to raise standards across the board? That is the question that parents would want to have answered. There are a number of things that the Government can do and a number of things that the Government has already done. The first was to recognise in the guidance that the chief inspector of education issued to all practitioners in August of last year that, in the eight curricular areas, there was primacy for literacy and numeracy—there should be primacy for literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. That was a very explicit statement that I asked the chief inspector of education to make to give clarity to the profession that, although curriculum for excellence relies upon, and I am a strong advocate of its breadth of delivery, there are certain elements within it that must be anchored, if I can put it that way. Therefore, the chief inspector's guidance to practitioners in August was designed to do exactly that. That is the first thing that the Government can do. The second is to put in place absolute clarity about what we expect in relation to literacy and numeracy. The benchmarks that were published in August, along with the chief inspector's guidance, are designed to give to practitioners the absolute clarity about what levels we expect young people to reach at different stages in their educational journey. From the feedback that I get—I listen very carefully to that feedback—those benchmarks are providing the necessary clarity that previously did not exist on those questions. I think that, in all honesty, we cannot expect teachers to try to get young people to particular levels if we are not crystal clear about what those levels are, and I think that that position has now been addressed. That is the second thing that the Government has done. The third thing, and the way in which I listen to the question that it essentially almost answers itself, is that universities are autonomous bodies. The first person in the queue to remind me of that will, of course, be Liz Smith. What the Government has to do is to lead a process involving all-interested parties to make sure that initial teacher education is delivering all that we require it to deliver for aspiring teachers. In my earlier comments, I said that I would be convening a discussion with the GTCS with the colleges of education. I am very happy to involve local government in that process, as well, to ensure that we have the necessary focus on addressing those issues. That is part of the work that I will take forward. I have, of course, already met the colleges of education and set out very clearly with them my expectations of what I would be looking for from initial teacher education, but also the role that I expect them to play within the development of our education system, because those are very significant research centres for educational development. I want the Scottish education system to benefit from that input. My final question is a big one. With hindsight, do you think that the curriculum for excellence has been part of the problem in that the teaching profession has had to focus on too many other things to the detriment of focusing on literacy and numeracy? Curriculum for excellence is a broad curriculum to enable young people to have the capacities to face an ever-changing and dynamic world. In that respect, as my opinion, the whole approach of curriculum for excellence has been validated from international commentators. I am very confident in its strength and breadth. I think that what has been necessary to do is to provide a clarity that, in amongst the eight curricular areas, we attach greater significance to three of those elements, which are literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. That is important clarity to have given to the system to ensure that what we need to ensure that young people are equipped to be competent in are those core skills. Whatever else young people are equipped for out of the breadth of curriculum for excellence, they have to have that strength of foundation in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. There are around 700 vacancies across schools in Scotland, and we can all agree that that has to be a key priority to make sure that those get filled. Therefore, the target for student teachers and making sure that those student teachers end up in the classroom is critical. I am afraid that I have been doing some number crunching, but I am sure that you will be able to cope with that. If you look at the probation of cohort for 2015-16, there was 2,500 or so, but the target number of student teachers for that year, looking back up the way, was around 3,000. If you include the numbers of teachers who were not employed at all from that cohort, you have something around 20 to 25 per cent discrepancy between the targeted number of teachers and the number of teachers who end up in the cohort. Are you all concerned about the drop-out rate that there may be through that process, from recruitment of those student teachers to the actual numbers of teachers working in the classroom? Of course that is an issue of concern, yes, because the model that we take forward is a model that looks at a whole range of different factors, which Mr Johnson will be familiar with, around pupil numbers, census information about pupils, the age profile of the profession, the number of exits that we anticipate, a whole variety of different factors, attention paid to particular specialisms, to ensure that those factors are properly taken into account. The workforce planning model is looking at a whole range of different factors to arrive at an assumption of how many teachers we need to train to ensure that we have an adequate supply of teachers within the classroom. If that is within that, there will be an assumption made about the proportion of teachers that we might expect in any given year to decide whether it is not for them or for life changes or whatever. Obviously, if that is exceeded, then we have an issue. The issue that Mr Johnson raises is a material issue, and one that we need to understand carefully what would be the reasons for that to be the case and what we can do to try to address those reasons. I thank you for that answer. According to tests, there is a 5.6 per cent drop-out rate from the PGDE. According to those figures on the probation of cohort, 13 per cent of teachers who have completed their probation year are not being employed, despite the fact that there are 700 vacancies. That would suggest that there are issues with the course and potentially issues with the experiences of probation. Do you have a view of what those issues might be and how the Government might propose to tackle them? There will be a range of different issues. Some of them will be about individuals getting further experience of teaching and not believing that it is the right thing for them to do, or there may be changes in their lives and their own priorities that will assess some of those questions. What we need to be attentive to is to understanding, in our dialogue with those candidates, what are the issues so that we can best address them in the way in which initial teacher education is taken forward and that any of those points can be properly addressed within the system to minimise the type of drop-out rates that Mr Johnson raises. We will never eliminate those issues. I think that it would be full hard of me to suggest that that could be the case, but we need to have them within an expected level to ensure that the assumptions that we are making within the teacher workforce planning system are assumptions that can be validated. As I said at the beginning, there are the combination factors of retaining those students but also having the right target in the first place. Given that the target number of student teachers fluctuated from 4,437 in 0506 down to 2,300 in 1112 and then back up to 3,706 in 1617, given that high degree of fluctuation in a relatively short space of time, does that raise questions in your mind in terms of the satisfactory nature and accuracy of that model, and are you confident that those issues have been addressed? The numbers that Mr Johnson uses are the correct numbers, but the other caveat that has to be taken into this conversation is about the position that was pertaining in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, which was a high level of teacher unemployment, if I can use that terminology. The model was recalibrated to take into account the fact that teachers could not get employment at that time, and our desire was to make sure that teachers could get employment where they had been trained to do so. Obviously, there has been quite a variation in the intake levels, but they have been affected by the surplus of teachers being able to secure employment. What we have to be confident about—this is a planning model that is not going to be an exact science—is that we have to have a sufficiently long-term line of sight to make sure that we are making the correct judgments to take into account the level of retirement or departure from the profession and the relevant intakes. There are significant variables that will happen in that exercise, but I can assure the committee that maintaining that clear line of sight is an absolute priority for the Government to ensure that we are able to maintain the correct approach to teacher training intake and, therefore, to the supply of individuals into the profession. I quite agree about having that line of sight. One of the concerns from our evidence last week was that that line of sight was really limited to vacancy data from local authorities. Rather than looking at the total picture of the number of schools, workforce models and teaching formulas that might be employed by individual local authorities. On the basis of that, do you think that the formula needs to incorporate more data points, in particular looking at the pattern of schools, models of teaching, and particularly moving from a year-to-year forecast to a three, four or five-year planning horizon? Do you think that there was an overcorrection to that first point that you made in that last answer in terms of that teacher vacancy? Do you think that those numbers have suggested that there was an overcompensation for that? On the first point, the statistical model that we operate takes into account a very broad number of factors. It takes into account population and pupil number projections. It takes into account pupil census, the teacher census, the age profile of the current teacher workforce, teachers leaving and returning to the profession, pupil teacher ratios at individual school level. It takes into account the need for some flexibility to meet the need for short-term cover staff. It takes into account assumptions on student retention rates, the issues that we have just talked about, and the vacancy survey. The vacancy survey is one of a range of different factors that are taken into account in the model. In relation to projections about numbers, we take into account a longer-term perspective than just one individual year, but we formulate on a year-by-year basis the target teacher training intake number. It is only relevant for that one academic year, but we are looking at projections of all those factors that I talked about there over a longer period of time, but it crystallises into what is going to be the teacher training intake for 1718, and the judgment is made on that point. All those factors are taken into account. I think that, clearly with the benefit of hindsight, the intake numbers in 2011 were probably overcorrected too far, but judgments were made at that time based on the level of teacher unemployment. If I was to hazard a guess as to what had been relevant in that period, I suspect that we had a greater number of teachers leaving the profession because of some of the issues around workload that I have now acted to address. If I were to come to a conclusion at this point, I would imagine that that factor has exceeded what was expected in the statistical model that we took forward. Thank you, convener. A couple of supplementaries to Daniel Johnson's questions about the model itself. When Lawrence Finlay from Murray Council gave evidence a couple of three weeks ago, his argument, which I would obviously concur with, was about the need for the model to be more localised and, indeed, maybe possibly in the future reflect the regional approach, for example, the Northern Alliance, would you agree with that? I certainly think that the model has got to address all circumstances in all localities, but I would want to assure Mr Scott and the committee that the position at local level is very directly taken into account in the formulation of the model as it stands, and that is done with pupil-teacher ratios at individual school level, but it is also taken into account in relation to the vacancy survey in relation to every local authority in the country, which is contributing towards that at local level. I think that what follows from Mr Scott's question is what are the particular challenges or issues in particular parts of the country, and in that respect we have to make sure that the statistical model reflects those challenges, which I am pretty confident that it does, but that our approach to initial teacher education and the work to deploy probationers around the country also takes into account some of those challenges in different parts of the country as well. Coincidently, actually not coincidently at all. I met Helen Boyce, the director of education at home yesterday, and she said that they are struggling with probationers for the new year, for the new academic year, and they have also got vacancies that cannot be dissimilar to any part of Scotland in that sense, but we have particular challenges in certain subjects in Shetland. The logic of that or rather the consequences of that are that some subjects may, and I quickly use the word may, may not be taught next academic year because of those vacancies, is the system yet dealing with those immediate challenges—I appreciate those three months away, but they are, for parents, real concerns now? Obviously, we will strive and work with our partners to ensure that there is the delivery of the breadth of the curriculum that is expected across the country. There will be a number of steps to be taken before we get to the start of the academic year to address some of those questions, and the probationary position will become clearer by that time. Mr Scott has correct that there is still some time for that to take its course. Of course, there are other reforms that we are taking forward that will help in the delivery of education where there are shortages. The Government has funded Western Isles Council to take forward the e-school provision, which is designed to address some of those issues by distance learning. This is one of the tools that I think will be crucial in helping us to address any shortages if they materialise in that respect. Obviously, we are working very hard with the colleges of education to expand intake to ensure that we have the right flow of probationers working into the system. Obviously, local authorities are active involved in the recruitment process, as we speak. I appreciate that. Lawrence Finlay also mentioned the preference waiver scheme, and he argued that, if I may quote him directly, we could make the preferential scheme a little bit more preferential. Would you accept that that is something that could at least be explored? We need to explore all of those questions to make sure that we have the right teaching cohort in every part of the country. Before I go on to the subject that I really was wanting to ask you about making the profession inviting for graduates, I want to follow on from something that Tavish Scott was saying about the localisation of planning and to bring up something that is quite current in my area that I discovered yesterday. The impact of a local authorities political administration has an impact on that. I have just found out that the current administration for Aberdeenshire Council is talking about closing rural schools in my area. Given that we have heard that we have problems with schools taking on probation and attracting people into rural areas to work and teach, how does that kind of decision impact on the job that you are trying to do? Obviously, there are two quite separate processes here. One is about possible school closures. Gillian Martin will be familiar with that. There is a very clear process that has to be followed by any local authority that wishes to act in that fashion. In large numbers of cases, I will be the decision maker ultimately on those questions. The due process has been followed and, obviously, all local authorities have to consider that before they come to any of those conclusions. Clearly, the detail that I put on the record a moment ago about the workforce planning statistical model relies on data about numbers of schools, structure of schools, profile of schools, school teacher ratios, pupil teacher ratios within schools. There will be a wide variety of factors that will be relevant and will have an impact on the steps that the Government takes in leaving the process. If there is a reconfiguration of the school of state, that will have an effect on our work. Thank you for clarifying that. Now I can go on to the subject that I really want to ask you about this morning. That is about teaching attractive to graduates. I know that the Government is doing a lot of work in that area. A lot of the people who were in front of us in the past couple of weeks from the various bodies were saying that that really is a real issue in the way that teaching is talked about in the media, in the way that teaching is talked about in this place. It is really off-putting to quite a lot of people who are looking to decide on their career. I would be interested in your thoughts on that. I think that the way in which education is talked about will have an effect on the attractiveness of the profession. I have taken steps in my communication about the profession to recognise the absolutely fundamental role that teaching as a profession performs within our society. It recognises the reliance that we have on a quality teaching profession and on the exciting opportunities to transform lives as a consequence. The Government reflected those aspirations in the recent campaign, Teaching Makes People, which in a sense captures in one line the attractiveness and the power of the teaching profession and the ability to shape the lives of young people within our society. Our message centrally is designed to create an attractive approach for the profession. However, I acknowledge that a lot of the debate and the mood music around education can sometimes be a challenge to compete with in putting across that positive and attractive message about the profession. I will go back to the issue around some of the things that may potentially put graduates off from mentoring about the progression into headteachers. Greg Demster from AHADS talked about workload and the issues about workload for headteachers. If people graduates are looking towards a career progression and then going into a headship at one point, that has an impact. He was saying that our members have told us that their top seven workload issues are the first is reduction in removal of class cover. That is a local authority issue in terms of staffing. You have seen a lot of the evidence that has been put before us. We heard that certain local authorities were not putting class cover in place over—they were expecting that teachers would cover classes because they weren't putting supply teachers in place for up to a couple of weeks. That is not something that you can do anything about, but local authorities have to recognise the workload issues around headteachers having to cover classes because they cannot get supply is an issue. One of my priorities has been to tackle the workload issue right across the profession. I have taken a number of steps, as the committee will be familiar, to try to address that issue through the clarity that has been provided through the chief inspector of education's guidance, by the removal of unit assessments in the senior phase, for example by providing the clarity around the benchmarks that are in place. I have also led a process that has involved all aspects of the system, the Government, Education Scotland, the SQA and local authorities, but also schools to tackle the issues of unnecessary bureaucracy. The guidance that was issued in August was designed to empower the teaching profession to be much more selective about what particular elements of bureaucracy and workload it pursued. I have also put a requirement on local authorities to rein back the volume of bureaucracy and workload that is applied to schools. I asked Education Scotland to look at this. It gave us a very clear report that demonstrated that, since the reducing workload reports had been undertaken under the auspices of the assessment and qualifications group a couple of years ago, some authorities had made good progress in reducing workload, others had some way to go and others were not even at the starting blocks. That message has been communicated to local authorities. Education Scotland has been monitored, but fundamentally what would help the position is if local authorities tackled some of that unnecessary bureaucracy to ensure that the teaching profession is able to do what I want it to do, which is to be liberated to concentrate on teaching. I want to come back to what Greg Devon said. The number one thing is not necessarily the bureaucracy, although people have mentioned that. It is about teachers having to cover other classes because local authorities will not have a supply teacher in place immediately when they have a situation where a teacher is maybe off sick. Schools are having to cover for a period of time until the local authority puts a supply teacher in place. That seems to be a major issue in some areas of Scotland. I think that there are two issues here. One will be about the availability of supply cover. If we have a general shortage of members of the teaching profession, there may well be challenges in the availability of supply cover in all parts of the country. That is again another factor that goes into the workforce planning model to ensure that we have adequate levels of supply cover available within the system, the flexibility and the size of the workforce to meet the need for short-term cover for staff. There will be genuine issues that have to be confronted there. Secondly, there will be choices that are made by local authorities as to how quickly they have put supply cover in place. That is something that I would encourage local authorities to be supportive towards schools in delivering that degree of cover as quickly and as promptly as it can be put in place to ensure that young people are able to be supported in their education. Cabinet Secretary, what force is planning a key element of this must be retention of teachers? We have had a number of different reasons given as to why teachers leave the profession. On some of the subjects, there is not unanimity from the people appearing in front of us. One of them is in relation to salary. There were some assertions that salary in the initial years for a teacher was too low and not attracting them into the profession, but after four or five years it reached a level that appeared to be satisfactory. I know that there are issues maybe at a more senior level, but during those critical initial years there was no unanimity on that. I wonder what your opinion on that was. Obviously, the issue of salary is an issue that has been taken forward by the SNCT process, of which the Government is one of the three participants in that process. The pay rates and pay scales are designed to make the profession attractive, to provide the necessary incentives to encourage individuals to come into the profession and then to progress through the profession. We have to be ever mindful of ensuring that that remains attractive to individuals. Obviously, I am conscious that, in the course of the last nine years, there has been significant pay constraint applied to public sector workers, which will include teachers. We have to be mindful of that and take forward our discussions within the SNCT. Fundamentally, we have to provide a sufficiently attractive set of pay scales for individuals, but we must also ensure that we address some of the issues that Gillian Martin raised with me about the powerful message to attract individuals to come into the profession, given the opportunities that the profession offers to individuals as a consequence. Another aspect that was raised was the question of promotion opportunities. Obviously, the structure in most schools is being flattened with less promotion opportunities through the ranks. That obviously affects teachers at a sort of middle-ranking level. Do you have any opinion on that? I am concerned about that point, because what I think has happened is that I think that we have lost an element of leadership of learning, because in not every circumstance, but generally, schools have moved towards broader faculty structures in which the leadership of learning in a subject, for example, like history, would have previously been undertaken by a principal teacher of history, but that is now likely to be led by a principal teacher of a much broader set of disciplines. Therefore, the ability to enhance the quality and depth of learning and teaching within schools is made more remote by the fact that there is not that immediate leadership. Obviously, it plays into the type of scenario that Mr Beattie puts to me about the opportunities for individuals to progress themselves through that process. There are significant issues about professional development that I am exploring as part of the governance review, which addresses the points that Mr Beattie has raised with me. Another point that was raised was additional support needs. The difficulty that teachers have in addressing them is partly due to the complexity of the additional support needs and the concern that perhaps it was difficult to give teachers the breadth of training that was necessary to cover all the potential conditions that they might meet in the classroom. There was also the concern about an element of disruption in the classroom, but a number of teachers have raised that issue as a significant issue for them in terms of carrying out their duties. Again, I wondered how we were tackling that. I think that there are two elements to handling this question, which are important. One is that we have to, I think that all teachers going through initial teacher education need to be properly equipped with the necessary skills to support young people with additional support needs, but we also have to recognise as a limit to just how broad we can ensure the capacity of the teaching profession to do that through initial teacher education. That brings me on to the second point, which is that where a young person is judged to be able to operate within a mainstream school environment, the support that that young person requires must be properly considered on the educational and social needs of that young person so that their needs are being met. That is surely the meaning of getting it right for every child. A teacher's ability to support a young person to fulfil their potential within the classroom would therefore be a blend of the core skills that they had as a teacher to address the needs of young people with additional support needs, but also reinforced by the capacity that would be present within the classroom to ensure that they were able to do exactly that. That judgment would be arrived at by the process of assessing what are the needs of this young person and can they be met within a mainstream school environment. I do not think that we can just take the view that additional support needs will, in all circumstances, be properly addressed by initial teacher education. I think that we have got to make sure that the foundations are unreservedly, but we have also got to make sure that there are proper resources in place to support the delivery of education to meet the needs of young people, which is their entitlement given the policy framework within which we operate. From the feedback that we had, it was clear that a number of the teachers felt that they lacked confidence to deal with the complexity of some of the additional support needs that came in front of them. I wonder how that could be better addressed. I think that there will be specific needs of the teaching profession to be addressed as part of ensuring that they have that necessary confidence to support young people with additional support needs. Certainly, in arriving at a judgment about whether or not a young person with additional support needs, whether those needs can be met within a mainstream environment will rely heavily on the resources that are put in place and what training and support is put in place to enable that teacher to be able to meet those needs in every respect. Just a brief point. You made a very interesting comment in answer to Mr Beattie about the issue with departmental leadership, namely that, because of the way that curriculum for excellence has been developed, there has been a move towards faculty-based leadership within schools rather than departmental one. Do you believe that the curriculum for excellence has, perhaps unwittingly, provided a problem that there has been a diminution of the core subjects as a result of that, which has had an impact on subject choice? I think that Liz Smith misinterprets my remarks. I don't think that curriculum for excellence has been the driver of this process to move to broader faculty leadership. I think that that's been decisions taken by local authorities to flatten the structures. I don't think that that's anything to do with curriculum for excellence. I think that what curriculum for excellence requires, and this is, in my view, a point that cannot be contested, is a depth of learning to enable young people to be able to establish the foundations in the broad channel education that will allow them to be competent in the senior phase and achieve qualifications. I know that Liz Smith has issues about curriculum for excellence, but I certainly don't want her to misconstru my remarks. I see curriculum for excellence delivering depth of learning for young people. It has to be a satisfactory level in the broad channel education to create the foundations that allow young people to perform at all the subjects that we are all familiar with in the senior phase. That necessity of deep learning, which is actually one of the purposes of curriculum for excellence, lies at the heart of that agenda. The move to faculty heads in a flatter structure is about local authority choices. It's not about CFE. I want to ask a brief point about initial teacher education before I go on to my main focus, which is on a proper understanding of what's happening in our schools. Some of the evidence that seemed to me that we got was a recognition that the route into teaching has changed from when I started out, where it was a lot of graduates, but it did oppose a graduate course into full-time teaching. It was young people going into teaching by that route. We're seeing now people wanting perhaps to come into teaching at a later stage. I think that we would encourage that because that experience that they can bring into the classroom is very significant, but it doesn't feel like initial teacher education has changed in its view of what a student actually is. We had some evidence of people telling us just how difficult it was for them to take a year out to commit to doing this course and then be expected to travel to various different placements and so on. What do you think should be done in terms of accessing those courses perhaps part-time, distance learning and things that you would be keen to develop? How do we make those courses more sympathetic to the reality is that people who are now becoming into teaching will have family commitments, will have caring commitments, are less free just to travel to wherever the placements might expect them to go? I think that these are all reasonable and legitimate issues, recognising the fact that those going into teaching may be different from just being a course that follows on or is a distinct undergraduate course that an individual takes forward. There are, of course, a number of very good examples of how courses have been adapted to do that. For example, a number of local authorities—perth and Cynos Council that I represent is one of them—has a partnership in place that enables its existing employees, who might be working in the housing service, to decide to opt to enter the teaching profession and the council essentially supports them as part of that process to enable them to do that, so they do not have to face the can I manage for a year without salary and meet the costs of education. There are a number of measures that are already in place, but I am very keen to explore how we can take further measures to broaden the base of intake. I think that the second issue that is valid in the points that John Lamont raises is about some of the practical manifestations of the work that has to be undertaken by a trainee teacher. I saw a constituent the other week there who was trained to be a teacher who has family commitments and has gone into teaching at a later stage in life, but the travel time to placements essentially upset the apple cart of childcare, which she would normally be able to manage. I think that being sympathetic to the particular needs of individuals who may have these other responsibilities in how we take forward elements of placements and other elements of initial teacher education, I think that we would perhaps address some of the issues that make it difficult for people to decide to enter the profession in the first place and to sustain that as a consequence of the implications for their own lives. To move on to the question of workforce planning, I am interested in whether we are actually understanding properly what is happening in our schools. Is there a gap between theoretically what a school is, what it is offering and what the truth is? We have had evidence, for example, headteachers in primary schools routinely covering for classes and therefore do not have management time, non-specialists teaching further down secondary school because the specialist teachers have to focus on those who have exams and therefore you are not getting perhaps the quality of teaching at the lower levels that you might have expected. Reduction in specialist teachers in primary schools and some examples where, when a teacher leaves, that becomes not a vacancy but a decision by the school no longer to run that course. I can think of an example around computing science. That would not be captured in any survey around vacancies, but it makes a significant difference to what is happening in the schools. I wonder how we address that question. I think that that impacts both on the capacity of a school to deliver on core issues such as literacy, numeracy and subject specialisms, but it also has a huge impact on what it is like to be a teacher in that school because it is not steady. It is not steady if you have got your lack of supply teachers to be able to come in free people out to do courses and so on. I wonder whether you have had any examination of this issue that basically we are managing problems with accessing teachers by perhaps reducing the curriculum or changing how the curriculum is delivered within individual schools? I think that we haven't undertaken a scientific exercise on that point, but I recognise some of the challenges that Johann Lamont raises and I hear about them when I am out and about within the education system. Some of them will be driven by the difficulties of recruitment of subject specialists and we know that we have particular challenges within the STEM subjects, for example, which can result in acute difficulties in the provision of certain courses. Some of them are also arising out of the availability of supply cover, so where a school may wish to undertake some professional development, the availability of supply cover will determine whether or not that professional development is able to be undertaken, which is not an acceptable conclusion. In my view, we have to make sure that we have adequate supply to enable professional learning and development to be undertaken. Some of it will relate to the general challenges that we face about the recruitment of teachers into the profession to ensure that we have the necessary stability within our teaching cohort. One of the points that I made in the debate on the initial teacher education, but I certainly made it in response to recent oral questions that I have answered, is that when I met or participated in the international summit on the teaching profession in Edinburgh in late March, it was clear from a number of jurisdictions around that table that the challenges that exist around the attractiveness of teaching as a profession and therefore the recruitment of teachers into a number of jurisdictions. We are not alone as a country in wrestling with the availability of teachers, but what we have to do is to try to take the steps that we can take, which I believe we are taking, to ensure that we have a number of diverse routes to encourage people to come into teaching to strengthen the availability of numbers in the system, which can then enable a more stable approach to be taken to the delivery of education. Given the time limitations of the PgD one-year course, whether there needs to be much more focus on CPD for early career teachers to retain them within those professions and what your thoughts would be on that? I think that there has got to be a constant focus on CPD to enhance learning and teaching within our schools. One of the issues that we discussed at the international summit, the teaching profession, which is attended by the Government and our trade unions, so we have to agree joint measures to take forward as a consequence. One of the measures that we agreed with the EIS and the SSTA and the Association of Headteachers and Deputy Headteachers in Scotland was the importance of continuing professional learning and professional development in which our trade unions would be participants in that process to enable us to enhance that continuous learning and development. A couple of questions, if I may convene. The first was on online security for children and young people, which we obviously rehearsed at the debate some weeks ago, and I'm grateful for the response on that. Would you be possible to give the committee an update as to how that is going to fit in? I was taking with the evidence that the Principal of Murray College of Education gave a couple of weeks back where she said that they have to squeeze that into everything else. You have just made much of literacy and numeracy, and there is going to be some more on that. We cannot have training teachers going into classrooms without a very full understanding of the dangers of online security given the world that you rightly said is changing around us. How does space be found for that kind of issue? I think that we have to make sure within initial teacher education that we are covering the necessary bases that are relevant to teachers exercising their responsibilities within the classroom. There is a lot of ground to cover, and the challenge will be to ensure that we have the necessary key attributes and elements covered within that in the initial teacher education, and then, if necessary, to be supplemented by the type of approach that Clare Hawke was talking about, about continuous professional development once individuals are in the teaching profession. That suggests that once they are actually at school. The initial teacher education has got to cover all bases, but it might not have to cover absolutely everything that one might need to know, and continuous professional development has a role in enhancing that capability and that knowledge. I accept that, but the slightly worrying thing that the committee found out in the previous evidence sessions from teachers themselves and the training teachers is that they are getting none on online security at the moment. I think that those things have got to be reflected in the initial teacher education. The other one, I would just want to ask it again in response to a following from one of my colleagues about pressure and workload. I hope that you might accept that, when Linda Robertson, again, a teacher gave evidence the other week, she said on, and this was about computing and Joanne Lamont's points on this, that the changes to N5 happened very, they were correct, it's good to happen, but they happened so late in the year, with three weeks to go before the start of the new year. Linda Robertson said, and I quote, basically we were told what the changes were. The SQA is not interested in dialogue. I was pretty concerned about that because we have rehearsed in this committee time and time again the need for the SQA and education has gone to be a heck of a lot more responsive to the workload pressures and that rather suggested from a teacher at the grassroots that you introduced a change or the system introduced a change there, a change that many of us would support, but it happened so late in the year and then it was just walloped into classrooms as usual. No change. Okay, well, if people want national five units to be removed and they are removed, they get what they want, they wish for, and there are then consequences of that. Well, three weeks to go to what, you see? To start the new act of the year for 50-year pupils, my son is just about to start. I know this, but these are changes to the assessment arrangements that will have an implication for the coursework assessment and the final examination. They don't change the course content. No, they don't, Mr Scott. They don't change the course content, and I think this is the point that has to be understood. I've sought reassurance from the SQA on this point because, as I understand it, course content has been changed in the biology course with material being removed from the course, but course content is not changed. So the point, I appreciate that the stuff came out with three weeks to go before the start of the school term of the bit before the summer holidays, but the course content was not changing. What was changing was the balance of assessment, and that's a really important distinction. It's not a pedantic point. It's a fundamental point that I think has been misconstrued in this discussion. Why did Linda Robertson say that the SQA is not interested in dialogue? This is not me making this up. Basically, we were told what the changes were. Well, because there was a requirement from the assessment and national qualifications group supported by the trade unions in this country that they wanted the unit assessments removed for 1718. So the SQA cannot move any faster when they've got an exam diet to preside over to do stuff as quickly as that. Ideally, the SQA would say to me, look, give us more time. Everyone wants more time, but if the professional associations want unit assessments removed in 1718, that was what the demand was. I've fulfilled that demand, but people have to accept the consequences of it. Good morning, cabinet secretary. I'd like to explore a bit more about initial teacher education and, specifically, placements. The committee heard varying evidence about people's experience of placements. Some of it was about the administration of it and when they were told where they were going to go. The bit that concerned me was about the quality of experience that students were having between different schools and sometimes within the same local authorities. There seemed to be evidence that some of it was down to the goodwill of individual mentors. I'd be interested to hear your reflections on how local authorities—because, of course, it is their responsibility, I guess, that the bug does kind of stop with them—to ensure that mentors in school placements have the required time and the skill to support our student teachers and ensure that that placement is a valuable experience for them. The placement element of initial teacher education is a fundamental part of how teachers require the necessary skills that they require to participate in the profession. It is also a substantial part of the professional role of teachers to convey their experience and knowledge to incoming aspiring teachers. It is in everybody's interests for the student placement to be a worthwhile and valuable experience to enhance the opportunity for those aspiring teachers and for experienced teachers to be able to convey their expertise and knowledge to individuals, but then also to be able to learn from some of the work that is undertaken with new teachers. That interaction to me is a fundamental part of the effectiveness of the student placement system. It is also an opportunity for us to take forward some of the continuous professional development that Clare Hawke was talking about to enhance the profession. Obviously, it has got to operate in a seamless fashion. I asked the GTCS, the Association of Directors of Education and the Universities, to jointly review the system and to take action to help to improve the process to ensure that individuals get as much clarity and notice and awareness about where they are going for their placements, because it is important that people have that knowledge and are able to take it forward. As a core element of our professional approach, I think that it is an essential component of our approach to the initial teacher education, but I also think that it has got to be delivered in a fashion that meets the needs of everybody involved. Finally, student placements help to provide some additional expertise within schools to help us to deliver the curriculum, which is obviously something that is very beneficial. It was suggested that it might be appropriate that there be some sort of service level agreement between the local authorities and the universities. Do you have any thoughts on that? Whether we call it a service level agreement or a joint bit of working, it is in everybody's interests to make sure that student teachers are able to fulfil their placements within the education system and that they can do that timidly and effectively and as a consequence to make that contribution to the system. I think that there is an onus on everybody to make sure that the system works. It is not just something that needs the local authorities to do something different or the universities to do something different. We have to focus on the interests of the students themselves and make sure that all their agents are put in place to meet their needs and their opportunities. It was on this question of mentors. We say that it is in everybody's interests for this to work. Some of the evidence that we got was obviously that people under pressure were being asked to be mentors and were finding it very difficult to fill that role, not out of any sense of hostility to the student but simply because of their own pressures. Is there any consideration of finding a way of recognising that role, whether it is through remuneration or by time, to make sure that the schools are able to deliver for the students in a real way rather than having somebody who theoretically is mentoring you, but that is already under the kind of pressures that I described earlier. I am not able to do that job since it is such a fundamentally important thing for a student or a new teacher to have as effective monitor. Our schools are and always have been busy places, so there is a lot going on. What we have got to try to tackle is whether or not there is stuff going on that is unnecessary and that is not actually central to the learning and teaching experience. That was the guidance that I gave to the profession last August to look very carefully and hard. Not just a profession but at the bureaucracy of education, local authorities, education Scotland and SQA, to try to ensure that we minimise the burdens that are placed on people so that we can ensure that all the core elements of education can be fulfilled. I would judge the student placement system and its successful operation as one of the core elements of our education system because that is how new aspiring teachers acquire a lot of their classroom experience and expertise. We have to tackle that issue by trying to address the wider issues of the congestion within the classroom and within the education environment, which, as I have said to the committee on a number of occasions, is at the heart of the agenda that I am taking forward. On that question of burdens, I get the importance of reducing bureaucracy, stripping out some of the unnecessary elements and assessments on it, but certainly anecdotally, and I would compare it again with one time teaching, some of the burdens on the teaching profession are administrative burdens that would in the past have been done by a school auxiliary or a support member or an admin member. A lot of those posts have gone and teachers report that they spend a lot of time doing that bit of the work, which is clearly not, in my view, not core to their job. Is there how do we ensure that there is proper investment in local authorities to allow them to that kind of support, which simply reduces the burden and allows the core work of a teacher to be concentrated on. There is not unnecessary stuff—it is photocopying or whatever. Is that something that you have looked at? As part of my focus on workload, I want to ensure that teachers are the words that I have used, liberated to concentrate on learning and teaching. That is what needs to be at the top of their priorities, and I want the system to reflect that as well. The onus is on local authorities to support schools and to equip schools with the resources that enable them to teach us to concentrate on that process of learning and teaching and for the tasks that do not need to be undertaken by teachers to be undertaken by, if they are necessary, to be undertaken by others within the school environment. I think that we are in a position where schools are reporting, teachers are reporting that they are doing those jobs that would have been 10, 15 or 20 years ago done by support staff. You can say that local authorities should make sure that. I am assuming that local authorities, like everybody in his room, are committed to delivering education. How do we ensure that they have the means by which they can have a proper—it is not just teacher workforce planning, but workforce planning more generally happening in education? Obviously, as John Lennon knows, local authorities are responsible for the delivery of education in our communities. I do not take those decisions. You make very big decisions about the financing of local authorities. I think that local authorities have been well supported financially by the Government, given the resources that are available to the Scottish Government in the periods of austerity. I accept as an election next week, so let us skip back to the workforce planning, solely the workforce planning answer. Ross Thomson, please. Thank you very much, convener. Cabinet Secretary, in oral and written evidence to the committee on the issue, we heard about the challenges in recruitment and retention of teachers in the north-east and in the north of Scotland, and measures that local authorities are taking, such as Murray, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City, to help to address that. We also heard directly from the trainee teachers about that natural bias to gravitate towards the central belt in taking positions. It was Laurence Findlay from Murray that said that, in relation to local schemes to attract the trainee teachers up to the area, it was important that local authorities did not try to outbid each other. Sometimes I have seen an element in that myself between Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire when you are trying to get people when you are so desperate to do it. He suggested that a national scheme could also help to tie in with local delivery, too. Is this something that the Scottish Government is looking at nationally, how we can incentivise those who have gone through teacher training, particularly in the central belt, to come up to the areas where we have a lot of vacancy? If I read Mr Findlay's evidence correct, I thought that Mr Findlay was arguing for local authorities to have even more scope to take local decisions. I do not quite follow how a national scheme would actually help to support that local priority. In answer to my question, he did talk about local knowledge being really important in a local scheme but said that it is important that local authorities do not outbid each other in terms of golden halos, for example, who can give the most money and who can give the better package. In relation to my question, he said that he would welcome a national scheme, not to overrule or to mitigate against anything local but to support what was happening local to prevent that competition. I venture to suggest that there is a contradiction between those two points of view. How can a national scheme do anything other than overrule a local scheme if it is a local competition between two authorities outbidding each other, which is the problem? I do not understand the logic of that point. I am referring to the evidence that he gave to the Cymru. I simply say that I do not understand it. I am simply making the point that if the purpose of a national scheme is to avoid local authorities outbidding each other, so its effect is to stop that local variation, then we have overruled what happens locally. I am just pointing out that I do not understand how that can be done. Have you done any work to look at what local authorities are doing and if that competition is taking place? We obviously work with local authorities to try to ensure that they have the adequate range of skilled professionals in each local authority to meet their teaching needs. I am acutely aware of the work that is going on within the Northern Alliance to try to facilitate co-operation in this respect, and it is welcome. I am supporting that work that is being undertaken. The other point, and this goes back to one of the points that Johann Lamont raised with me, is about the profile of people that may wish to enter the teaching profession from some of the more rural localities. We have to be adaptable in that respect to make sure that if individuals wish to enter the profession but they are entrenched in living in a rural part of Scotland, that they do not particularly want to go and live somewhere else, that our teacher training system addresses their desires and their aspirations, so that bluntly everybody does not have to come to Glasgow or Edinburgh to get teacher training, they can do it in other parts of the country. Obviously, the University of the Highlands and Islands has taken forward a number of these measures through distance learning. I think that there are certainly ways in which we can provide the necessary assistance to local authorities in advancing some of that agenda. Thank you very much for your answer, cabinet secretary. In the opening statement to the committee when talking about those new routes into education, you said that the recruitment campaigns were a central plank of the Scottish Government's efforts. Back in February 2016, we had the announcement in Aberdeen of the Transition Training Fund that we were told in the press and journal in BBC that it will lead to more high-quality, passionate teachers in the area. The most recent figures from Aberdeen itself say that they had five trainees go through the programme, three of which dropped out, two of which dropped out to return, two oil and gas. Therefore, two teachers will shortly be starting at Hazel Head Academy. Given that that was meant to help plug the hundreds of vacancies that there are across city and shire, do you think that the Transition Training Fund in relation to teaching has been a failure? It has certainly been an attempt by the Government to provide a route for people who had lost their employment in the oil and gas sector to find a different career if they wished to do so. No, I do not. I think that it is important that the Government tries to be helpful to local authorities. That is just what Mr Thomson has asked me to do in his earlier question. The Government has been helpful to the North East of Scotland, put in place the resources and has tried to be helpful to oil and gas workers who have faced hard times. We heard in evidence just last week that the scheme in the view of one of the witnesses had not been successful. We have had constituents getting in touch as well as it has been reported in the press that some of the issues have been round about barriers in terms of accessing the scheme, barriers to accessing funding. Will the cabinet secretary look at maybe undertaking a review of how the scheme has worked, particularly since local authorities are still waiting to hear whether or not the scheme will be continued? As you are looking to do that, will you look at the issues that there have been and what changes could be made to make it more accessible and reduce those barriers so that we can get people into teaching and we can get these vacancies filled? I am certainly very happy to look at how we can encourage more people to use this device. It is what people asked us to do, so the Government has put it in place and I certainly want to make sure that people can use those opportunities. Gillian Martin, do you want to come in here? The case that perhaps the rhetoric around teaching that I mentioned earlier might be a way of encouraging more people to access the transition training scheme. The transition training scheme is my understanding that it is not just to get oil and gas workers into teaching, but into any other sectors that are needed to recruit. The rhetoric around teaching, if the narrative changed in that respect, that would be helpful. One of the witnesses said that they thought that one of the reasons why the teaching aspect of it was unsuccessful was that they felt that workers who came from the oil industry had not realised exactly what teaching involved and told them to get involved in it and then clearly they thought that it was too much for them. There are a number of reasons why, yes. Go back to some of the points that Mr Johnson raised with me on the fact that the reasons why people sometimes do not continue to pursue a career in teaching is that they do not find it as they would have expected to find it and make a different choice. People are entitled to make those choices if they so wish. I would like to go back to additional support needs for a moment. Cabinet Secretary, you touched on it in your opening remarks and I will come back to initial teacher education in a moment. We have heard consistently, not just in the course of the evidence that we have gathered for this particular area of our work, but throughout the past year in speaking to newly qualified teachers and students, or even teachers who have been in the profession for some time, about that lack of confidence that they do not feel able to fully support young people with additional support needs. That is partly due to initial teacher education, which I said in a moment, but do you recognise that it is also in part due to the loss of the specialist support staff? Newly qualified teachers are entering the classroom without the specialist staff who would have otherwise previously been there with them to support young people with additional support needs. I think that there is a context that is important to consider around this point, and to me it is the most important point. That is that if we are making a judgement as a system that a young person with additional support needs can be educated in a mainstream setting, we have to make sure that the right support and resources are in place to enable that to be the case. That is the key point. I have seen the evidence that the committee has taken on additional support needs, and I have written to the convener to this effect that I planned to issue a consultation on new guidance about mainstreaming, but I have decided that I am committed to doing that on 19 May, but I have paused that until I see what the committee reports on this subject, so that I can reflect on that before I issue the new guidance. That is the key test. Every young person who has additional support needs must be entitled to have the support available to them that they require in whatever educational setting. If we are going to decide that a young person's needs can be met within a mainstream setting, we have to make sure that the support is in place, but if we decide that that young person's needs can be met or need to be met in a specialist provision, that has to be put in place as well. Fundamentally, I come back to that point that a judgment has to be arrived at as to whether the young person's needs can be met in a mainstream setting and what intervention is required to make that the case. Therefore, to make it then possible for a teacher to be able to support that young person and the other young people are responsible for educating as part of the classroom setting. I accept that. I would hope that the presumption to mainstream, which is an important and inclusive principle, is not damaged simply because of resource pressures on schools and it being a relative of staff cuts that they decide a young person can't be inclusively educated, but going back to the point about new-equalified teachers. I think that what I'm saying in my answer and I think that I'm making the same point as Mr Greer. I'm a fundamental believer in the principle of mainstreaming, but if we are going to put a young person, make a judgment that a young person can be educated in a mainstream setting, they must have the resources to do that. I think that it's likely that a young person who's not educated in a mainstream setting but educated in a specialist educational provision, the cost will be greater of doing that than being a mainstream setting. What would be concerning me is whether the young person can be fulfilled unless they're properly supported. That's the point that I'm trying to get across. I absolutely agree with that, but going back to the point around the teacher and education as a young person's centre and that's right, but the point around the teacher, do you recognise that there is a confidence issue amongst newly qualified teachers because they're being expected to do more and more directly support in a more specialised way young people than their predecessors were simply because the additional staff, the specialist staff, are not there. That is also a confidence issue amongst teachers and that has a whole range of other effects, including on retention, which was discussed earlier. I think that there are two separate issues here. One is, I don't doubt that a new teacher coming into the classroom and working with a young person with additional support needs and having not done so before will certainly lack the confidence in how they're able to handle that situation. I think that that would be quite a natural thing because it will be unfamiliar and they won't know all their way round it, so I don't doubt that factor. I come back to the point that I've been labouring in my earlier answers. That teacher, however lacking in confidence they may feel, must be able to rely upon the right support being in place for that young person to make sure that their needs are met. It's not just about the confidence issue of teachers. Some of that confidence issue will be mitigated by there being the right other support in place to assist them in what they're trying to do. I absolutely agree with that. Go on to the initial teacher education. You mentioned in your opening statement your proposal to meet with the GTCS and deans of education. Could you outline in a bit more detail what your objective is there in terms of the consistency between courses? That came up quite strongly in our evidence, the inconsistency specifically in relation to additional support needs. What I want to do is to make sure that we can be assured that there is due account being taken of the essential ingredients that are required in the initial teacher education that have been properly met. The question that I have looking at the data is that the range on some of these attributes is so broad that it raises questions in my mind about whether or not all of the provision is as consistent as it needs to be. Now, there may be a good explanation for that, but I just feel that the range requires explanation and examination. The GTCS should be taking the lead on if they're strengthening their guidance. Will the GTCS essentially sign off the initial teacher education propositions from each school of education? Yesterday, for example, it signed off two new courses in the University of the West of Scotland to take forward new opportunities in the initial teacher education, so the GTCS certificated those and announced that yesterday. It is a combination of the universities formulating courses that meet the needs of student teachers and the GTCS essentially validating and accrediting those courses. Thank you very much. Daniel, you've got a very short supplementary point about the accreditation and evaluation. One of the things that's been flagged is that the GTCS is responsible for accreditation, but it's Education Scotland that does the inspection. Is this something that might be looked at in your governance review? Do you think there is a question around the relationship between that accreditation and inspection regime? Well, I think there's a complicated set of arrangements here because the universities are, as Liz Smith will tell me, autonomous bodies and therefore are free to decide their course content, but I think that there is a legitimate right for us to be confident that what is being provided is appropriate for our requirements. Just to finish off, cabinet secretary, you talked about teaching makes people earlier on and that it's been receiving quite a number of visits and positive reviews. How do you take the interest that's been shown and try and encourage those people then to go into teaching? What essentially what we're trying to do with the campaign is to tackle some of the issues that Gillian Martin raises about people's views about the teaching profession, how we can interest and motivate more people to decide to enter the teaching profession. In 2015-16, the campaign that we launched contributed to a 19 per cent increase in the number of university graduates entering postgraduate teacher education courses in Scotland. I'm not trying to say that was the only factor, but it contributed too. So obviously we look to try to encourage and to motivate people to participate in the profession. The initial contacts are made at the recruitment fairs. I attended one of those recruitment fairs at the University of Glasgow and the campaign was one of those recruitment fairs. It was a very energetic stall trying to encourage people to participate and obviously we take contacts, we follow that up and try to encourage young people to take an interest within any of the institutions that are participating. Okay, that was a bit, I was interested in the follow-up. Okay, thank you very much. In that case, I draw a decision to close. I'd like to thank you very much for your time and your answers and I close the public session.