 Fyelodol, y bwrng ystod y cwestiynau ei tymo, gyda NPF, ac rhai gwrth pawb ac mae'r cwestiynau unrhyw ddechrau Gyrtwyr. Dwi'n cael i wych yn afliadau — yn gymwylltaeth hwnnw, mae'n ddechrau Pfeifcolledshg ac ddim yn gweld ddechrau Gyrtwyr. Yr ymdweud eich Llanffyll? Llanffyll mewn ymdweud hyn rhaid i fynd mewn Pfeifcolledshg yn y maen nhw'n gyfer eu gwylltoedd My recent meeting with the college was on 7 November to mark its status as an accredited living wage employer during living wage week. Clare Baker. I thank the minister for her answer. I believe that the minister is aware of the decision by Fife College to cut their HND journalism course and no longer offer access to the NCTJ exams. I understand from students on the course that they were only recently informed of this decision and it has been suggested that they transfer to the University of Sunderland. Those students have made an investment in the course and had expectations of their future. For many Fife students, transferring to Sunderland is not a realistic option. As I understand it, this decision will leave Glasgow as the only option for an accredited NCTJ course in Scotland. Does the minister think that it is acceptable for a course to be cut halfway through the programme and will she raise this matter with Fife College? Minister. I thank Clare Baker for that follow-up question. She is indeed correct to point to the withdrawal of the practical journalism HND course at Fife College. This was withdrawn due to a lack of demand from students and also an analysis of the future needs of employers in the local economy in Fife. The HND course, which is the same as the year one of the HND will continue to run. As with any change to course options, the Government does expect colleges to have the earliest opportunity to ensure provision of support and information for alternative opportunities to continue their study. I understand that the principle of Fife College is keen to meet with the students who have been affected to hear those concerns and to explore directly with them the issues that they are facing. I understand that that will be arranged in due course. I will ensure that. A recent report from the Scottish Funding Council has shown that the number of students coming to Fife College from the most deprived communities has declined in recent years from 27 per cent in 2014-15 to 23 per cent in 2015-16. Can the minister comment on what action will be taken to reverse this worrying trend and ensure that all students, no matter what their background, have the opportunity to enter further education? Well, colleges play a very, very important role in widening access to further and higher education, and Fife College is no exception to that. I know from my own experience as a Fife MSP that Fife College and its new principal are working very hard to ensure that they have the right curriculum in place and to support student applications from across Fife. I know that the principal is concerned about the number of students who are coming from different backgrounds throughout the kingdom, and he wants to take that forward. I am very pleased to see the positive work that he has been taking forward since coming into position. The Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Government will do everything to support him in that. 2. Ian Gray To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Parent Teacher Council's survey of parents, which found that 92 per cent believed that not enough money has been spent on schools. Cabinet Secretary John Swinney Presiding Officer, the latest data shows that education budgets in Scotland are increasing by £144 million in 2017-18, a 3 per cent increase on the year before in cash terms. We have allocated £120 million of pupil equity funding in 2017-18 directly to around 95 per cent of schools to be spent at the discretion of teachers and school leaders in improving attainment. This is a direct investment by the Government to individual schools to help them to close the attainment gap. The SPTC submission is very clear that we have seen a 16 per cent drop in spending on education since 2009, and they say explicitly that additional funds such as the pupil equity fund are welcome but do not reverse the decline. They talk about parents having to raise funds for basics such as IT, textbooks and reading schemes. Will the Cabinet Secretary just listen to parents and promise now to reverse the decline in school spending over recent years in the forthcoming budget? I welcome the fact that increased resources are being spent on education. There were increases in 2016-17 and 2017-18. The Government has put in place the resources to support pupil equity funding. Earlier today, I had the privilege of meeting the Pupil Council and other pupil representatives from Murrayburn Primary School in Edinburgh, in which the children of that school were able to explain to me exactly what choices they had made about the allocation of pupil equity funding to enhance the learning environment of their school and to assist them in closing the attainment gap. I welcome the creativity and the innovation that has been taken forward, which is evidenced by the additional resources that the Government is putting into education. Can the cabinet secretary again confirm that local authorities spent £4.9 billion on education in 2015-16, almost 3 per cent, as the cabinet secretary stated, more than in the previous year, and that spending per pupil is in fact higher in Scotland than in England? That is indeed the case. The Government invests nearly £8 billion in education every year in revenue and capital, including funding to local authorities. Spending on education by councils has risen in each of the last four years in cash terms, and the total revenue spending on schools has risen under this Government since 2006-07 by £350 million, or 7.6 per cent in cash terms. Alexander Stewart To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to young people with special educational needs. The responsibility for the provision of support to children and young people with additional support needs rests with education authorities. The additional support for learning act requires education authorities to identify, provide for and to review the additional support that their pupils require. As I announced in the debate on mainstreaming this month, there are changes to that legislation forthcoming in January of next year. To support authorities to prepare, the Scottish Government will publish revised statutory guidance on the requirements of the act, including those changes. Non-statutory guidance on the new requirements and complaints to ministers and will establish a service to support children to exercise their rights on their own behalf. That is in addition to the consultation on the guidance on the presumption to mainstream education and the research to help us to understand the experiences of children and young people who receive additional support for learning. Alexander Stewart I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Is the cabinet secretary not aware that the removal of charitable status from independent schools will have a massive impact on the 20 small private schools that cater specifically for children with complex additional support needs? Already two of those schools have voiced concerns that removing their charitable status would mean a rise in fees, placing at risk their future and those of the children they work with. Can the cabinet secretary commit to protecting those schools and ensuring that parents and special needs pupils will not pay the price for this rate increase? David Stewart I think that Mr Stewart has got a couple of things muddled up in the question, because the issue of designating organisations with charitable status is not a decision of mine, that is a decision of Oscar, so that is completely an issue over which I have no control. What I think that Mr Stewart has got muddled up with is the possibility of rates having to be paid by certain independent schools. If I have correctly understood his question, that issue is one that the finance secretary is considering. As he said, he would consider in response to the review undertaken by Ken Barkley, and he will report accordingly to Parliament in that respect. Daniel Johnson I have been declaring an interest as an adult with an ADHD diagnosis. Identification of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD is a vital first step towards putting in place the right support for children and their learning. Will the Government commit to including ADHD as a distinct category in the pupil's senses, as is the case currently for autistic spectrum disorder? David Stewart First of all, I have admired the courage that Mr Johnson has expressed in relation to those personal issues, and I have appreciated reading and understanding his experience in that respect. I will give active consideration to that particular question. I have to confess that I have not looked at the categorisations in relation to pupil's senses, but in light of the issue that Mr Johnson has raised with me, I will look at that and reply to him in writing. Ross Greer There are significant issues of inconsistency in identifying young people with additional support needs that has been noted by the Education and Skills Committee. Inspection in Scotland inspection regimes do not appear to give much regard to assessing additional support needs, identification and provision. Does the Scottish Government believe that ASN identification and provision should be given greater regard during the school inspection? David Stewart I would consider those issues to be material to inspections, because one of the core aspects of the inspection approach is to consider the measures that have been taken in relation to the health and wellbeing of children and young people. I would consider that to be the issues that Mr Greer raises to be absolutely material to some of those judgments. In addition to that point, Mr Greer will be familiar with the fact and raised it in response to Mr Stewart, my other answer, about the research that we will be undertaking to help to understand the experiences of children and young people who receive additional support for learning. Part of that experiential research exercise is to understand how effective needs are being met and to ensure that the points that Mr Greer raises are properly addressed as part of that commitment. I give the Parliament the reassurance that the two reassurance is one that I would consider the meeting of young people's needs with additional support needs as being utterly material to the inspection approach. Secondly, the research that we undertake needs to be a comprehensive analysis of the experiences of young people so that we can reflect that in the policy implementation and guidance to make sure that what we say in statute and in policy is what is happening on the ground. Question 4, Ivan McKee. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the provision, availability and student financial support in Scotland for higher education courses in British Sign Language. Presiding Officer, BSL courses are taught across a range of levels at college and university in Scotland. Financial support is available within the current student support package for students undertaking eligible BSL courses of further and higher education. We want to make Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work, visit and learn. Last month, we published Scotland's first BSL national plan, which sets out 70 actions that we will take over the next three years to make progress towards this ambitious goal. The plan includes a number of actions to increase the opportunities for learning BSL. Ivan McKee. Thank the minister for the answer. The minister may be aware that the only part-time postgraduate course for students of BSL in the UK is at the University of Central Lancashire. That is available by distance learning to allow students from as far afield as possible to take part. My understanding of the SASH regulations is that students for a part-time postgraduate course delivered in England could, in principle, attract support from SASH. However, under current policy, SASH does not provide that. Will the minister give consideration to whether it might be possible for students such as BSL that are not available in Scotland to be eligible for a funding package? I fully recognise that many of the improvements that we want to see being delivered through the national plan will depend on the availability of qualified BSL English interpreters with the right skills and experience. We already support a full-time degree course in BSL English interpreting at Harriet Watt University, and there are a range of vocational opportunities available at colleges, too. Over the next two years, we will sponsor two new training programmes, one at Harriet Watt and one at Queen Margaret's University, designed to support BSL interpreters to work in the specialist fields of health, mental health and justice. However, we are aware that there may be BSL courses offered at universities in the rest of the UK where there is no equivalent here in Scotland. We recognise the need to ensure that support is available to Scottish domiciled students to enable them to take up their chosen course. I can therefore announce today that we will address the issue that Mr McKee has raised and that eligible students who wish to study a part-time postgraduate BSL course elsewhere in the UK will now be able to access a tuition fee loan of up to £5,500 from Student Awards Agency Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what areas will we prioritise for improvement when assessing the school inspection regime. The Scottish Government launched the national improvement framework for education on 6 January 2016. The publication sets out four key priorities that everyone in Scottish education should be working towards. The school inspection programme will continue to focus on those areas for the improvement of schools. Those areas are improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy, closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children, improvement in children and young people's health and wellbeing and improvement in employability skills and sustained positive school leaver destinations for all young people. I thank the Deputy First Minister for that answer. In February of this year, George Watson's College, a private school, underwent an annual engagement visit in which the school submitted self-evaluation information related to child protection and safeguarding. There were no identified areas for improvement identified at that time. By September, a special inspection was ordered by Scottish ministers following a complaint from a parent regarding serious bullying. That special inspection led to ministers imposing conditions on the school due to it being at risk of not adequately safeguarding the welfare of a pupil. Given that, does the Scottish Government believe the inspection regime for private schools to be adequate? Yes, I do, because what we have in place is a model, which is a blended model, between self-evaluation, which applies right across the board in all schools within Scotland, private sector or state sector schools, and then the opportunity for us to undertake inspections, which are the more traditional inspections with which we are all familiar and which I cited in the answer that I have given to Ross Greer. In some circumstances, those inspections will identify particular issues. They crystallise in a different way in relation to the private sector, because there is an independent registrar of independent schools. Through that mechanism, there will be issues identified that have to be addressed, or potentially have to be addressed by individual schools. That was the case in relation to George Watson's College. That has been communicated to the college and my expectation is that the requirements of that inspection will be fully honoured by the school. Gordon Lindhurst. The general secretary of the EIS has raised concerns that a proposed introduction of a programme of young inspectors would be unacceptable because they would not have the skills to evaluate what was going on in schools. Does the Scottish Government support the proposal and, if so, how would it ensure that the quality of school inspections will not decline as a result? I think that we need to have a sense of perspective here, because the concept of introducing young inspectors is not to replace, if I may use the term, old inspectors. It is to ensure that the perspective of young people is fully integrated into our assessment of the performance of education. I sometimes despair when I am involved in conversations about education, where the interests of the children and the young people do not crop up in the conversation other than when I am introducing the issues into the debate. I am all for young inspectors having a say about their schools. As I said in my answer to Mr Gray a moment ago, I have just met a fabulous group of young people from Murrayburn primary school who have been decision makers about how people equity funding is to be taken forward in their school. They were great advocates for the choices that they had made and I think that it is important that we listen to the voices of young people as part of our assessment of the performance of Scottish education, because ultimately the education must serve their interests. Question 6, Stuart McMillan. To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the teaching of STEM subjects in Greenock and Inverclyde constituency. Minister Shirley-Anne Somerville. We are providing specific support for the teaching of STEM subjects in Greenock and Inverclyde with our funding for the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre. This is included support for the development of primary science mentor teachers and science training for primary teachers in the Inverclyde and Clydeview academy school clusters in the constituency. We also provide support to generation science and the Scottish Council for Development and Industries young engineers and science club in 2016-17. Both of those initiatives have supported schools in all 32 local authorities. This is included support from SCDI to young engineers and science clubs in all the primary and secondary schools in the Inverclyde area and a visit by generation science to all the primary schools in the area, reaching over 1,500 pupils. Stuart McMillan. I thank the minister for that reply. With 2019 being the year of the passing of Greenock-Born inventor James Watt, would the minister consider using James Watt commemoration events to highlight the importance of STEM subjects and also would he consider the introduction of a national James Watt educational prize which could be won annually by a school which excels in STEM teaching? As my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs said, in September events being planned to celebrate the life and achievements of James Watt would be warmly welcomed across Scotland. I understand that West College Scotland, for example, are actively considering their role in such events and that that may include provision of a prize for students. I'd be happy to hear further details from the member of such proposals in due course. Question 7, Jenny Gilruth. Thank you, and I remind the chamber and the PLO to the education secretary to ask the Scottish Government whether it expects the duties of headteachers to include recruitment administration. The consultation that I launched earlier this month on the education bill makes absolutely clear that the headteachers charter will empower headteachers to be the leaders of learning and teaching in their schools. Local authorities will continue to be responsible for providing high quality education support services to schools, supporting headteachers to make decisions that most affect learning and teaching in their schools. That will of course include a significant role as the employer of teaching and non-teaching staff within their schools and the provision of HR and recruitment support. Jenny Gilruth. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Fife Council has recently changed their teaching recruitment policy, putting their headteachers in charge of the administration tasks associated with appointing staff. Concerns have been raised with me about headteachers workload, with one having to sift through over 200 applications before emailing candidates short-leaded for interview via the talent-link programme. Does the cabinet secretary agree that local councils should not expect headteachers to complete additional administration associated with recruitment and that local councils, such as Fife Council, should empower their headteachers to lead learning by freeing them of unnecessary bureaucracy? I certainly think that there should be an approach to removing unnecessary bureaucracy within our education system because, in a whole variety of different respects, all organisations need to be mindful of the bureaucratic burdens that are carried within the education system. The whole objective of the headteachers charter is to enable headteachers to be able to exercise greater influence over learning and teaching within their schools. I think that that includes extending to choosing the individuals who should be in their staff. I want to see headteachers very fully involved in the recruitment process that are undertaken. Through our approach to education, we will be serving the system well by all of us in all organisations looking to minimise the bureaucratic burden that is placed on our schools to enable more concentration to be applied to learning and teaching. Iain Gray Does the cabinet secretary intend that headteachers' recruitment powers should allow them to use untrained and unqualified math students to teach maths, as the Scotsman today reveals as the case in Trinity academy in this city? Cabinet secretary. On the question of who should be teaching in our classrooms, my position is absolutely clear and consistent that only GTCS registered teachers should be teaching in the classrooms. That is from what I see from the comments that have been given to the Scotsman by the convener of education, children and families at the City of Edinburgh Council is exactly what is happening in relation to the case that Mr Gray has raised. The students from Edinburgh University who are assisting in the classroom are not undertaking the teaching, there are experienced teachers taking the classes with students assisting pupils with their learning. That is what has been set out to the Scotsman by the convener of education of Edinburgh City Council. David Scott Will the Deputy First Minister accept that when I met the sound primary school pupil council on Monday in Lerwick, the school explained to me that they are one music teacher short and on their third round of interviews and they have an ASN post free as well. Is not the important thing here to make sure that there is availability of qualified teaching staff and not give them pass, they simply do not have the time to undertake? Cabinet secretary. On the point about teacher vacancies, of course I want to ensure that we take every step we can to ensure that we have an adequate supply of trained and experienced teachers to be present in the classrooms and where that is challenging, we have to find ways in which we can support the delivery of education to meet the needs of young people. I also believe at the same time that it is vital that our schools are able to exercise a greater degree of flexibility and for head teachers to be able to operate that power of flexibility to ensure that they can best meet the needs of learners within their individual classroom settings. That is what I take from the discussions that I have within the education system of the appetite within our schools within Scotland. It is also the advice of the international council of education advisors who encouraged us as public authorities, Government and local authorities to give much more freedom to our schools to exercise greater discretion over the approach that they take to the delivery of education. Neil Findlay. For some head teachers it would be a delight to administer recruitment because they cannot get people into the classroom to actually teach the children. The administration is not the issue. It is getting the people in who are able to deliver lessons. What is the cabinet secretary doing about that? There are a number of things that we are doing. We have expanded the number of places that are available for teacher education. There was a further increase this year to over 4,000 places available. We have been unsuccessful in filling all those places, so we have devised new routes for teaching, which has generated over 200 additional recruits into the initial teacher education that would not have come in if we had not developed new routes into teaching. I am sure that those new routes into teaching, which generated 200 new candidates into teacher training, will be welcomed by Mr Findlay. We have also been taking forward the teaching makes people campaign, which is a recruitment campaign, to encourage more individuals to come into the profession. The general teaching council has taken forward provisional conditional registration to make it easier and more practical for individuals from other jurisdictions to come into Scottish schools and to be able to teach if they have the requisite qualifications to enable them to do so. There are a range of different measures that the Government is taking to encourage and motivate more individuals to come into the profession. There is another tender that is just closed on Thursday. It is on Friday of last week for an additional new route into teaching. The Government is taking a range of measures to try to enable more teachers to come into the classroom and we are entirely focused on that exercise. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent report by University Scotland working to widen access. Mr Shirley-Anne Somerville. I welcome University Scotland's report, which moves us forward in our shared agenda to widen access. I remain concerned that the report's recommendations will not allow universities to meet the timescales and policy challenges contained in the commission's recommendations. For example, the target date of 2020-21 for minimum entry requirements is a year later than the commission recommended and we need to pick up the pace of change. While I note the actions and articulation and bridging programmes, further clarity is needed as to how and when these will support more young people from the private communities into higher education. In particular, I am keen to see how we can ensure that activities and programmes that are already working well in some institutions can be rolled out to others to create the systemic change that is needed across education to provide equal access. Angus MacDonald. I thank the minister for her reply. Clearly, one of the groups of young people whom we need to ensure of equal access to the opportunity of higher education are those with care experience. Can the minister advise the chamber what progress the Scottish Government is making in delivering its commitment to widen access specifically for care experience young people? Minister. From this academic year, students with care experience under age of 26 now receive a full non-repayable bursary of £7,625 to date, around 500 students attending university in Scotland are now benefiting from this support. We also want to see every care experienced young person who meets the entry requirements being offered a place at a Scottish university. While I welcome the commitment to make Scotland paper to progress this, I will continue to press universities to act more urgently so that we are all doing everything that we can to give care experience young people more opportunities to study at university as soon as we can. Bill Bowman. Thank you. I welcome the report, but I note the minister for further education's concerns that those recommendations might not allow universities to meet the timescales and policy challenges previously contained in the widening access commission's final report. Does the minister agree that the success of the widening access policy ultimately depends on raising attainment in schools that is patently lacking at present? Minister. Have you spoken to the University of Scotland themselves? They recognise that universities have a role to play in that. While we sat in the delivery group as we did last week, while we discussed attainment within schools, where we sat, discussing the whole systems approach to tackling widening access with individuals from primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, universities and other stakeholders, we are all very, very aware that to make change in the short term that universities as autonomous institutions need to play their part, many universities are stepping up to that challenge. Some are a bit behind the curve to put it politely on this aspect. We will take a whole systems approach to widening access and we are doing a lot as the Deputy First Minister has already described to increase attainment within schools, but there is no excuse for universities to sit back and wait for something else to happen to deliver widening access. They have taken up that agenda themselves so shame the Scottish Conservative Party do not do that too. Dean Lockhart To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the number of student teachers. The Scottish Government is taking a range of actions to help to increase the number of student teachers. We have committed £88 million this year to make sure that every school has access to the right number of teachers with the right skills. We have provided £1 million to the Scottish attainment challenge to support universities in developing new, innovative routes into teaching. We recently announced stem bursaries of £20,000 for career changes to train and become teachers in priority stem subjects. We have launched the second phase of our teaching which takes people recruitment campaign and created a new route into teaching specifically designed to attract high-quality graduates in priority areas and subjects. The tender exercise for this closed on 16 November and the evaluation process will commence shortly. Student teacher numbers have risen by 7.5 per cent in 2017. With those new measures in place, we expect to see a rise in the number of people training as teachers continue to rise in the years to come. For that response, figures that were published last week showed that only 70 per cent of the Scottish funding council targets for student teacher recruitment were met. That includes just 63 per cent of the target for English teachers and 47 per cent for math teachers. Failure to meet those targets are resulting in teacher shortages across mid-Scotland and Fife and Scotland as a whole. The steps taken by the Scottish Government as explained by the cabinet secretary have so far failed to recruit the necessary number of teachers. What assurances can he provide that the additional measures that he set out will be effective to address the 816 vacant teacher posts across Scotland? For completeness, I should correct Mr Lockhart that the intake by schools of education for primary teachers was actually higher than the targets that the Government had set out in the original propositions. We recruited more primary teachers into the recruitment than we had targeted. Mr Lockhart is correct that we recruited fewer secondary teachers into the system, but it is important that he does not convey the incorrect impression that the schools of education did not succeed in recruiting all of the teachers. In relation to the specific actions that the Government has taken, we have not taken action to create new routes into teaching. We would have not had an additional 204 candidates that have been recruited to the teacher education system and a rise in the number of initial teacher applicants would have only been 2 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent that the Government has secured as a consequence of those measures. The increase in the intake of student teachers builds on the 19 per cent increase that took place in 2016. I am the first to acknowledge that we are facing challenges in identifying and recruiting all of the teachers that we require in our school system, but as the evidence demonstrates an adequacy of places to enable that to be the case what we have got to find is new routes to enable individuals to enter the teaching profession which is why I have put in place STEM bursaries, it is why I have opened up a new route into teaching and it is why the Government will look at other measures to try to address this issue. Gillian Martin. Can the cabinet secretary give an update on the proposed scheme to allow those moving into teacher training from other sectors to access bursaries and give Parliament an indication of any other measures that have been taken to encourage those who might not be recent graduates or who might not be a new career? The evidence demonstrates that there is an adequacy of places for younger people who are either leaving school or leaving university to enter teaching for a career if they wish to do so and what we have found is that not all of those places have been taken up. For that reason, I think that we have got to look at other measures which will enable people to change careers and to support them in that process. For that reason, one of the new routes into teaching that is taken forward by the University of Strathclyde is aimed particularly at individuals working in STEM subjects to enable them to go through a postgraduate diploma in education over a shorter timescale but enabling them to complete that training and to enter the teaching profession. The STEM bursary route that I have put in place is designed to encourage and support individuals who are already in employment to consider changing careers to enter the teaching profession and the Government will continue to explore other ways in which we can take forward this agenda to make sure that we have an adequate supply of teachers in our classrooms. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all secondary schools in Dundee have adequate numbers of staff. In my earlier answer I set out in detail to Mr Lockhart what actions the Scottish Government is taking to recruit teachers. One of our 11 new routes into teaching is the supported induction route at Dundee University, which will increase the number of people undertaking teacher education in the Dundee locality. Bill Bowman. Over the past year, Dundee secondary schools reported 34 teacher vacancies up on the previous year with 22 of them vacant for longer than three months. What guarantee can the cabinet secretary ensure that all secondary schools in Dundee will not increase next year? What the Government is doing is taking forward a range of different approaches to encourage the recruitment of more individuals into initial teacher education and to encourage individuals to consider switching careers to enter into initial teacher education. We are also taking a range of measures through the General Teaching Council to encourage teachers who are not actively involved in teaching to return to the profession. We are also in negotiation with staff in relation to the trade unions in relation to the payment of supply staff to increase the supply cover within our schools to enable more options to be taken forward to ensure that adequate teaching personnel are in our classrooms to meet the needs of young people in Dundee and in every other part of the country. Can I ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place with Skills Development Scotland in relation to reported skill shortages such as the shortage of chefs in the hospitality sector? The industry-led tourism skills group facilitated by Skills Development Scotland is working to implement the actions that are identified within the refreshed tourism skills investment plan. A group of food and drink experts met for the first time in May 2017 to review the matter of reported chef shortages and to discuss potential next steps. As a result, this meeting was proposed that a new working group should be formed under the auspices of the tourism skills group, which is due to meet again on 13 December. In addition to this work, I have undertaken direct engagement with the sector in September of last year. I attended the first of our youth tourism conference in Dundee in June of this year. I visited the Busby hotel, met a number of their younger members of staff going through training. In August, along with the Deputy First Minister, I met with the developing young workforce national advisory group who are active members of the regional developing young workforce group. In September, I met with Nick Nairn, a representative from Dimblay and Hilton hotel to discuss the training of chefs and skills shortages. This month, I visited the Fairman hotel near St Andrew's to hear about their ambitious plans to support young people. I spoke at the Scottish Chef's Conference of Skills in our sector, and only yesterday I visited the Hillcroft hotel in Whitburn to hear first hand about their work with the developing young workforce at West Lothian regional group. He is taking this issue very seriously. He will be aware where the food and drink sector is worth £14 billion of Scotland and the hospitality sector is worth £11 billion of Scotland. For both industries, the availability of chefs is crucially important. Many businesses that I am speaking to in my constituency and around Scotland are now telling me that this is a real, severe issue, the shortage of chefs. There are a number of issues that are being suggested that could address this, many of which the ministers already mentioned. Particularly support, for instance, for the Scottish culinary team, which is budding chefs competing in international stage, which in turn can inspire young people to get involved in the industry, and other factors such as renaming home economics to something more modern and attractive to inspire young people to learn more cooking skills. Will the minister continue to make this a priority so that we can ensure that we make the most of Scotland's food and drink potential? I am glad that Mr Lockhead recognised my wholesome answers to be a vivid demonstration of how we take this agenda. I can certainly commit to ensuring that this remains high on our priority list. I have set out that there is a range of activity under way that activity will continue. He mentioned the Scottish culinary team. Of course, we already have provided funding for the Scottish culinary team to help chefs of the future to ensure that they are better prepared for the culinary Olympics going forward in relation to his suggestion that we rename home economics. I think that I will probably be overstepping in a mark in that regard. I may need to discuss that with the Deputy First Minister, but all suggestions would be gratefully received. Question 12, Edward Mountain. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish funding council's statistics on teacher vacancies particularly relating to the highlands. Cabinet Secretary. The number of vacancies across Scotland currently represents 1.6 per cent of the teaching workforce. As I have already stated in my answers, we are taking a number of actions to help to redress this and recruit teachers for all local authorities. For example, we are supporting innovative projects with the University of the Highlands and Islands and the University of Aberdeen who recruit students from the highland area. Edward Mountain. The fact that there has been a sequence of questions on this particular subject probably tells the story. Given teachers' vacancies in the highlands have been unfilled for more than three months and years have risen from four to sixty-two, what is happening at the moment obviously isn't working. Are there any specific steps that the Deputy First Minister will be taking to encourage teachers to move to the highlands and to stay there? Cabinet Secretary. The most effective thing we can do is to support the University of the Highlands and Islands in ensuring that it is able to provide initial teacher education in an accessible fashion right across the Highlands and Islands of the UHI model is the ability of individuals to access higher education from within the community that they live. Once they have secured their initial teacher education to be able to make a contribution to the education of young people in that locality, that is exactly the new route that I have opened up as part of the measures that the Government has taken forward. I welcome the initiative the University of the Highlands and Islands has taken in this respect to respond positively to the Government's invitation to tender in this respect and I look forward to those routes generating the interest and the involvement that will ensure that we have a strong supply of teachers to fill vacancies in the Highlands and Islands and in other parts of Scotland in the periods to come. Graham Dey. Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether I would be correct in assuming that since this data was collected in September things have probably changed, meaning that those statistics don't necessarily reflect the reality today? Obviously, there will be variation in the statistics from period to period as vacancies are filled and as new vacancies arise. In the most recent analysis that we undertook to inform our workforce planning the information indicated a vacancy level of around 1.6% across the whole of Scotland. As I have said to Parliament before, recruitment into the teaching profession is not just a challenge for us in Scotland it is a challenge to literally every jurisdiction and we are working hard to find different ways in which we can encourage more people to come into the teaching profession and to make that contribution to raising the educational performance of our system by meeting the needs of young people in every part of our country. I thank the ministers and members for their contributions. We move on to the next item of business.