 Good Morning everyone, I'm Claire Adamson, convener of the Education Skills Committee. Today we're joined by my colleagues Beatrice Wishart and Jimmy Halcro Johnson, and delighted to welcome the Scottish Youth Parliament here today. With us from the MSYP we have Kirstian Morrison who's a Public and Policy Affairs Manager for the Scottish Youth Parliament. Liam Cowley MSP, Maryl Cinerfin, Martin Carl MSYP, Aberdeen Donside, Cameron Garrett, MSYP, Gallen Butte, Cam Mackay MSYP, Glasgow Southside, and Sophie Reed from MSYP for Girlguiding Scotland. So, I'm delighted you can all join us today if you could just let us know who you are when you make your first contribution this morning. That would be really helpful and we know we have five questions to try and work our way through and we are time limited to an hour today because the First Minister's questions in the chamber shortly. So, can I thank the outreach team and for all their support this morning and I'm going to move straight to the first question which I invite Martin Carl to respond to, first of all, but that was what was being the impact of COVID-19 on learning and what do young people think about the plans to reopen schools? Is Martin there? Yep, thank you. My name is Martin Carl, I'm MSYP for Aberdeen Donside. The impact of COVID on young people's learning has been significant and I'd like to go through, first of all, some barriers which have arisen. Motivation and focus is one barrier and to quote one young person, since the switch to online learning, I've heard from myself and countless others that their work ethic and motivation has completely vanished. Some have also said to us that social media and external distractions have also proven a challenge. Our consultation and research of our partners indicates that not everyone understands or has access to the relevant technology for learning and this is something particularly important considering the importance of this in enabling pupils progress from home. The levels of interaction and verbal support have also been identified as a barrier which particularly affects those with additional support needs or who prefer more personal and tailored feedback. We've gone to the plans to reopen schools to highlight some of the key points here. 37% of respondents to a lockdown low down mini survey on the topic noted concerns around the safety of returning to school, making it the most frequent concern mentioned in that survey and one which has also been reflected in our own consultation. These are concerns of our high schools will implement social distancing and how they will implement other practicalities and also that these decisions need to be influenced by and communicated clearly to young people. This is also highlighted by significant levels of responses to these consultations which highlight the need for managing expectations and to quote the idea that it is a complicated issue and it won't work for all and extracts from our own consultation. There are mixed views of the idea of a move towards blended learning. On one hand some are supportive of the plans and believe it to be the safest under the circumstances and on the other some are concerned and highlight the danger of catching the virus especially if they are shielding, vulnerable, live with someone in those categories or our children of public service workers too. One young person commented to lockdown low down that I am worried that the Government will open schools too soon causing the virus to circulate again as schools are the perfect place for the coronavirus to spread and thrive and another to our consultation that there is absolutely no need for schools to be rushed back for what could be a very short return and risk of spiking cases. Finally some highlighted concerns over phased timetables and the subsequent impact of this on exam season next year. There is also confusion over how this would be enacted particularly for those who do foundation apprenticeships who travel to learn. Those on the autistic spectrum are with additional support needs and it's also important to consider the importance of a school routine full time with school a safe haven for those vulnerable backgrounds and difficult home circumstances. I thank you. Thank you very much Martin. I'm going to open up. I can see a chat and I can see everyone who's on the call so if people could just jump in and see who they are and hopefully we'll get through some contributions on this topic. So I'm hoping someone will jump in just now. I'm happy to if you if you want. Thanks Jamie. Hi Jamie Happy Johnson. I'm a Highlands and Islands MSP. Firstly I was going to ask how many people the lockdown low down went out to and what your proportion of responses percentage of responses back because one of the things that's been very difficult for us to get information from particularly ministers has been information on things like access to technology and the support that young people were getting in their learning. So it would be interesting to see that. You also said there was 37% I think concerned with safety which you know as one of their primary concerns which I'm not surprised that surprised about at all and of course safety is vital. I was just wondering if you had any figures for the impact that the people concerned about education because obviously there's a balance here as well. I'm not surprised that there's a balance here as well. I'm not surprised that there's a balance here as well. Obviously there's a balance here as well with so many young people missing out on their education and the impact that that will have you know going forward. So if you've got anything additional on that that would be will be very helpful I think. Just before you answer Martin sorry I'm just getting to grips with this technology here. I now have access to the chat on my phone so if people want to contribute if they can put an R in the chat and I'll call them in turn sorry about that. Martin please come in. Yeah to deal with the first part of your question lockdown load down has been a survey programme that has run for some time in partnership with the Scottish Youth Parliament with Youth Think Scotland and with Young Scot as well. This is comprised of several surveys so the first I mentioned is the second statistic I gave was received by 2419 responses and that was the main survey that covered a range of different topics on the issue. This has been followed up by several mini surveys and I can't unfortunately access the oh sorry there were 93 responses to that mini survey that's relevant to the question that I answer today and in terms of the second point of your question in terms of the statistics that we've got from those surveys about how many people are concerned about the the long-term impact on their education and the figure for that is 23% and that looks to be the third most prolific response given after the concerns around safety and also the impact of lockdown on mental health as well. Kate can I bring in Miss Wishart? Thanks convener. I'd like to ask a good morning and welcome to our MSYP colleagues who have joined us this morning. We do appreciate that you have taken the time to come and give us your views. Could I ask a bit about the technology deficit? Are you able to expand a bit on that Martin as to what exactly that means for for the people who've responded to the survey? Yes certainly. I don't think I can obviously speak for everyone who's responded to that survey but the the types of things that we would expect to come under that are not understanding how to use the technology or not having enough technological awareness to access things like Google Classroom or other facilities but there's also a proportion of young people who might not have access to the technology at the convenient time for their learning but also for the fact of not having technology for income reasons or for access to technology as well so there's a range of different reasons that could be counted towards that. Could one of those scenarios be where you've maybe only got one piece of equipment in the household and you've maybe got parents working at home that need to use that access? Would that fit into that kind of situation? Yes definitely that is something that's come up through some of our survey responses and some indicate that there's a balance between parents working from home and pupils being able to progress with our learning at the same time with the same piece of technology. Yeah and can I sorry can I ask can I ask also then about the lack of motivation and work ethic? Is there anything particular any sort of mainstream or strand that comes out of that? Again I would say there's a variety of reasons that come back from our consultations and from lockdown lowdown on this ranging from things such as poor mental health and things such as that and challenges towards that but also the idea of those external distractions having social media and as I said at the end there schools considered very much a safe space for young people so it's the idea that school is a place where people can go and escape the outside world that they're maybe not being able to achieve at the moment working from home. Thank you. Okay I see Liam Fowley MSYP would like to come in? Yes thank you. Just to circle back to what Mr Bishart said regarding digital exclusion digital exclusion is something we've seen very prevalent in all our consultations be it through lockdown lowdown or our individual ones. We've seen quotes like I don't have access to a laptop during the day due to my mum working from home so I regularly find myself up at 4am trying to keep on top of all of my work and so I've got young people that are it's not they've not got access to it just they've not got access to it at the right times to try and find support with their teachers and etc and then there's the other side of it if there's a rural or an area that doesn't have a good connectivity they're struggling as well and so digital exclusion is coming in a lot of different forms and but it's definitely very prevalent throughout all of our consultation. Thank you. Could I just ask a question about the plans to return to school a lot of discussion around those at the moment and you know we're just starting to see some of the plans to some of the local authorities. It's how do young people feel about the possibility of all church halls or other venues being opened up other than the school and do they have any concerns about that and just in general terms about the blended knowledge obviously we've talked about general mental health the lack of social inclusion the lack of the ability to have and you know just be with your friends on a social level but in terms of what is causing the most anxiety for young people and do you have any indication of what age groups you feel are most directly affected as is it those who are approaching exam years or are you seeing that from younger pupils in different school settings as well. In response to the first part of your question there I'm not actually certain at the moment on opinions on returning to things like church halls or returning to different spaces I'm not sure if any other MSYPs in the group might have any responses on that and in response to the second part in our consultation in advance of this meeting age wasn't something that was collected so I don't have any data from our consultation on any particular age groups that were responding unfortunately nor do I have any particular responses on the age groups that were raising some particular concerns but I do have some statistics on in general how many what the proportion of age groups responding to things such as the lockdown low down were over half of the respondents to lockdown low down were age 15 to 18 in age group and 75% of the respondents were actually in school as well so those are the statistics in terms of age and in terms of response otherwise there's other factors as well which statistics can be passed on to you as you feel relevant and as I say I'm not sure if any other MSYPs have any responses on the idea of returning to church halls for example okay I'm not I'm not seeing an indication that anyone else would sit at this stage I think Mr Halcro Johnson may have I did yeah and sorry it's going back to digital poverty just because it's something that you know we've been looking at almost since day one and as I mentioned not being able to get a huge amount of information on I was just wondering if there's any anecdotal evidence that the situation regards to digital poverty i.e. those don't people that don't have access to the right laptops or broadband has improved over the period of lockdown because as I say at the start of the process we were kind of we were given general figures by government on you know the more kind of social aspect of lack of access to internet etc and it hasn't really improved huge amounts and so I don't know if there's if there's any feeling from any any view that that issue has been if certainly not addressed but you know partially improved over the period. I can use a local example for that if that's okay I know that there's initiatives in Aberdeen City for example to enable as many young people as possible to have access to things such as Chromebooks or things such as routers for 4G and things like that so there have been attempts made and that is just an anecdotal example from Aberdeen City locally. Okay I think Liam wanted back in as well. Thanks. Yeah just to go back to digital exclusion we know a lot of local authorities are providing packs that they know to young people that are unable to access the social resources for every reason and like a paper versions of activities and we know this funding available now and young people are trying to access that to get access to laptops and however the biggest thing I think young people are noticing is going to be the the issue of not knowing that that's there and so there's so well being there but unfortunately if they don't know it's then it's difficult to access which has been I think the biggest hurdle so far into letting people know and it also Kirsty Morrison would like to come in too. Yes I just wanted to quickly say I don't know if the committee has seen include Ems report yet on digital exclusion and they've done initial report around the kind of levels of exclusion and I know they're continuing to monitoring these issues with people they are working they are working to get resources out to people and they're monitoring that situation so they might be an organisation that could also help shed light in the committee for the committee on this area. Thank you that's very helpful. I'm afraid we have to move on to our next question already and thanks for very quickly and this is what impact has lockdown had on mental health of young people and I'd like to invite Sophie Reid MSYP to respond initially. Hi I'm Sophie Reid MSYP for Girlguiding Scotland lockdown has seen a significant impact on mental health and we know that young people are worried about their mental well-being from the lockdown low down report 39% of young people were moderately or extremely concerned of around their own mental well-being this number has remained consistent during our follow-up surveys and was further reflected in this weekend's lockdown low down mini survey which specifically asked young people this question and this found that the majority of young people who responded have felt a negative impact on their mental health. One of the biggest impacts that lockdown has had has been an increase in loneliness due to the inability to connect with others in person. Many young people have expressed that not being able to see others face to face has effectively taken away a majority of their support network. One respondent commented we don't realise how much we are impacted by being able to interact with one another with everyone losing access to their coping mechanisms and the constant uncertainty and awful news is no surprise people are suffering. Lockdown has also exasperated further pre-existing mental health conditions with many young people feeling theirs have worsened during this time especially in relation to anxiety. Young people have also mentioned that their anxiety has increased due to fears around the future from our own consultation. A key finding was that many young people have had an increase in anxiety due to the uncertainty around SQA grades and also the fact that they can't see their friends and family. There's also been an impact due to support being removed including the school closures and not being able to access teachers to help. Another respondent raised the issue that CAMHS has not been in contact with some of my friends who would regularly use their services which is impacting their mental health because they feel there's nowhere to professionally turn to right now. Other young people mentioned that they have been feeling suicidal or feel that they may need to go back to therapy after lockdown due to the situations. Whilst there has been many negative impacts on mental health some young people have also noted a positive impact due to being able to get away from their normally busy everyday lives with one respondent saying the impact on their mental health has been good as it has decreased the amount of school and exam stress and another noting that the slower place of life during lockdown has enabled them to start learning healthy coping mechanisms. Thank you. Thank you very much that was really helpful Sophie. I'm just so that you know we do have health questions this week and my questions then the Cabinet Secretary will be on the issue of mental health so I'm happy to share in that session with with you all once it's happened tomorrow. In terms of you mentioned that the support network seems to have fallen away in schools and of course when we were looking at a situation where we're moving towards hopefully having a councillor in if the school recognising the support mechanisms recognising the challenges for young people and you know in my own area having had quite a few cases of suicide amongst young men you know it's been something that's been very much at the forefront of the work before then. Are people feeling that that work is completely stalled? Are there any examples of people continuing to get the support they need or do you feel this is a sort of global situation for young people at the moment? I think overall like the support network in schools has kind of fallen away obviously teachers are still accessible but even for some young people who don't have access to the internet this is a further problem with that as well but I know I live in Glasgow and I know that Glasgow City Council had a big white wall it was called I think online and any young person in Glasgow City Council could access that and that had trained professionals who you could contact at any time so I think that's one situation where there has been support put in place when schools are closed. Okay thank you for that and Mr Algro Johnson wants to come in as well. I'm reverting to my formal convenisional and I usually always refer to my members as by a straight name but Jamie could you comment just now? I am sorry if the phone ring I can't stop the phone ringing at the moment so apologies for that. That was really interesting. I was going to ask a couple of things. The cam thing is particularly worrying because you know I've been doing a lot of work in terms of the delays that there were in treatment already in the pressure and of course that I imagine that will only grow as we go forward. I know one of my colleagues has been doing a lot of work about the mental health impact of COVID and the pressure that's going to go to be coming on. I was just going to ask I mean in general terms you know there's a huge amount of work being done about making the public aware of COVID the risks etc but of course actually the risk to younger people is particularly small you know based on a group. Do you think young people are more concerned? This is probably a leading question and it's not intended to be but I mean there is obviously going to be concern not only for individuals but about family members and the like but do you think the level of concern from young people over COVID actually relates to the risk or do you think we've almost frightened people that we didn't need to? I think from our own consultation we saw that young people and from my consultation I've saw that young people are worried about their own family members especially older family members and I think that is a particular worry of young people and I think that young people do recognise that there is a significant less risk of developing COVID-19 and having like worse symptoms compared to older people but I think there is like a lot of concern for older family members from what I saw. Okay I've got a couple of members wishing to come in I've got Liam first and then Cameron's go to Liam first. Thank you Sophie covered in kind of the general bit was going to mention however definitely fluctuates and actually so young some young people are generally concerned about carrying it into their own household and passing on to vulnerable vulnerable people in the household but they're also concerned because sometimes the information they get isn't always accessible and so they're hearing a lot about the R number as everyone is and all these other things and briefings and as clear as these are trying to be sometimes it's just difficult and everyone is talking about COVID-19 and they find it difficult just interpret that information and how to react it so that definitely contributes to their concerns and worries and anxiety when it's not necessarily have to be and where other people are trying to combat that but it's definitely prevalent. Okay Cameron Cameron there still Cameron's still in the call are you on mute they're not can't hear you Cameron no sorry um are you maybe on mute is that better that's better it's because my microphone had come unplugged somehow anyway so speaking personally here our garland view is historically bad at mental health services which is something I'm quite keen to change so COVID obviously isn't doing any favours in that respect obviously I can't speak for the rest of highland maybe Beatrice and Jamie might be able to being highland MSPs but morality is really going to be playing an issue at the minute it's through inaccessibility and digital connectivity as we mentioned earlier. Thank you very much and again we're going to have to move on to our next question but just before we go I think one of my concerns is that while we know some of the aspects of COVID-19 we're still learning so much about the disease and we're seeing it and present in different generations in different ways so though we maybe don't have the impact that it has on older populations in terms of you know ending up in ICU and we do know that there are risks for young people and we have seen people with health problems as well as young existing health problems who have been greatly damaged by this so I guess it was still very much learning about the risks and the possible impact on young people at this stage. If I can move on to question number three which is what do you think about the process of estimation of grades this year and I'm going to invite Cameron to speak to that first of all again. Thanks. Thanks Kevin and hopefully a more smooth start to this segment as my previous question. Anyway first I must make it quite clear that young people's views about the results process are mixed. This subject is rather widespread as it will be affected by almost half of high school students. The young people we consulted with in the last week who did well on their prelim seem to be supportive of the idea of estimated grades. One of our consultation respondents said although using estimates from teachers might leave some students at a disadvantage and gets the best way to ensure the majority of students get the grades they deserve. However pupils who failed or didn't do as well in the prelims as they believed they would have in the final SQA exams weren't so supportive because they feel their prelim grade does not accurately reflect their actual working grade or allow for improvements in the months leading up to the exams. Personally last year I got a D in my Spanish prelim and got an A in the final exam so this does happen. Many young people said that pupils do not focus on prelims as they're told they're just a practice run instead they decide to focus on general revision coursework and unit assessments that decide whether or not they proceed to the final exam. Pupils feel anxious and are struggling to come to terms with the fact that their prelims could now form their grades. In the recent lockdown lowdown report half of young people said they are moderately too extremely concerned about their exams and coursework and in addition to this young people feel worried and anxious as they don't feel their estimated grades will accurately reflect their full potential. One in 20 young people do not feel they will get the grade they think they deserve. These pupils are worried that the pandemic will also have huge consequences in their future educational and employment prospects and there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding education in general. One young person said that we've been totally left in the dark. There is also concern around the fairness of awarded grades. A lot of young people are concerned that poor relations with their teachers will likely impact their grades and will put them at a disadvantage. A lot of young people criticised communications over this process saying they were left confused and not sure what's been taken into account and what's not. There is also confusion around your ability to appeal and where the cutoff is and if they're free. Some teachers haven't been updating pupils on SQA developments and some young people requested more direct methods of communication such as email and text updates. In summary young people would appreciate better and more robust guidance on this year's results process. Thank you. Thank you. I see Beatrice wishes to come in. Beatrice there. I'm not hearing Beatrice. Have you ever gone to mute? I'm not seeing Beatrice. We'll try and get in in a minute and Liam, I see you if you would like to come in as well. Yes, sorry to skip the key almost. The exams and process can definitely seems to spark a bit of a nerve with young people and they get very frustrated with it and you ask the question and they're going on. Not always but a lot of the time and there's concerns about someone in a vector school might get a better grade than me etc and there's a lot of comments as people feeling like the decision making process is kind of avoiding them and just discussing it in kind of offices elsewhere and it's their decisions. They're futurally deciding on where normally it's the young people's decision by doing the exam and so they're very concerned that these grades are these grades are being predicted that aren't actually in reflecting it and there's one for different models people have done their own research and looked and cross borders and seen in other countries how they're trying to combat this as well and feeling that our process is becoming a bit unfair to them and of course there's a flip side to that and something we feel it's fair and definitely sparks a bit of a nerve unfortunately. It's obviously been a concern of us to the committee and we're trying to bring Beatrice in again but she's indicated she's having a bit trouble with the system. Beatrice if you're not able to come on. I'm here yes. Yeah I had this problem with the mute button on a meeting yesterday so I must be something at my end. I was just interested in the sort of inconsistency that you were highlighting about young people being informed as to what the grading system was all about and the details of that so what do you think would help is there anything at this stage that would help any information how that could be communicated to you what do you think would be needed now? First I think the information that we've been getting from you know the SQA and whatever has been long documents loads of words not very young people friendly so the advice needs to be something that young people want to look at want to read and actually enjoy reading and not get bored and they'll actually get something out of it and as I said towards the end there needs to be more robust guidance because it's been really really quite vague in the past couple of months or so. From your earlier contributions Camyn, you seem young people maybe feel there's too much emphasis on the prelim results and understanding the wider context that was put around the estimation process would you think that's a fair reflection on where young people are? Yeah I think a lot of young people are thinking that the prelims are going to be their actual result but obviously what they're not understanding is that coursework and other factors will come into play with their final results so I think that definitely needs to be made clearer with young people that the prelims aren't the beagle and end all although they will play a part. Sorry again a few members that we consulted over the last week did say they'd like to have information provided on exactly how their individual grades were assessed so what bit of what coursework they done throughout the year from the teachers and how the teachers came to that conclusion so they know themselves what the process was followed whereas normally they see their exams and they can request their exams backmarked they want to see how their one grades are coming informed. SIPs done a lot of work with SQA on this sort of thing trying to break down the barriers with communication which has been very positive but we're trying to get to more young people and making sure they can see it two times there thank you. Okay thank you for that I'm afraid again we're going to have to move on to get through all five topics and our next question is what supported disadvantaged young people need most at this moment and Liam you're going to lead on that. Yes thank you. These questions have kind of dropped in a lot earlier in the questions of trying to be quick as possible and I've covered a lot. The first thing off the back when we asked these questions is we understand we are not experts in the needs of vulnerable people, young people that responded to the questions also recognised they're not the experts in the needs of vulnerable people and more constations to be done with these groups. Some of the key things we found when we were asking questions related to this was that financial support was required and the educational maintenance allowance stops, SAS stops over summer and whilst there's additional funds available and they're not always accessible, these young people want to be fully prepared for an August of blended learning and they want to improve their Wi-Fi, they want to get better technology, maybe even get a desk and a chair if necessary and so that they're not disadvantaged to the person that might have this and also in their classroom. When we asked what actions they want to, young people want to see taken and it was mostly surrounding financial support and to quote people, I'm worried about not being able to afford to live off 80% of my small wage in my part-time job and as well as this there was concern about young people having to use food banks because they're having to direct their funds elsewhere to their education and to prioritise their Wi-Fi et cetera and to make sure they've got a laptop for example and over and food unfortunately. Another key highlight was additional support from teachers and so for young people that are disadvantaged, have caring responsibilities for example just a few extra calls from teachers helping organised schedules, maintain workloads, make sure they're doable and they're coping well and they don't have that connection in school at the moment so there needs to be an arrangement for that. Some people highlighted like some area where they can go and chill with people and safe so a community hall or social distance play a game or have an Xbox or something as simple as that and to kind of relax. The additional pastoral support is definitely highlighted, young people have that, it's a different environment school, they can go to that and to quote one young person, school is my safe haven and I've lost it and so they now can't go to school, they can't relax et cetera so some form of additional support face to face calls and someone suggested a helpline if you like as well. Young people told us their concern, the impact current measures are having on those with additional support needs and we want more further engagement with those with additional support needs so they feel that they've been fully understood and understood and valued there. Our colleague in committee, the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has responded to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities and Human Rights Committee on highlighting and they need to have various groups in disadvantage to marginalise young people in Scotland and thank you very much. Thank you, I see Jamie, would you like to friend Jamie Hergo-Johnson? Thanks very much and thanks for that Liam. I was going to ask I mean from anecdotal evidence through teacher friends of mine, they said there's quite a large proportion, well you know a concerning proportion but that way of young people that they've not spoke to, they've not had any contact with at all. I'm interested you know you've obviously contacted you know a number of young people but I wonder on top of that some of the most vulnerable people aren't actually even coming back to your survey response and I know say many have just not had any contact at all, contact at all from teachers despite the best efforts of teachers who obviously many are working extremely hard. I wonder what can be done to make sure we're not missing out on these currently missing probably tens of thousands if you look at each school because of course there are degrees of vulnerability but obviously there are some people that are not engaging at all. I'm just wondering what your thoughts or people's thoughts would be about that? Yeah it's definitely concerning. I don't think, I mean I can't speak for individual needs. Every single person with additional support needs have a different need and they'd want to engage our society differently with their teachers. Some young people might be incredibly anxious but are incredibly anxious by the whole situation and are shutting off completely. I've seen it personally with friends etc and they're not coping well with the situation, they're not getting in touch with teachers, they're avoiding them so the best teachers are trying their best but it's just not working at all to the class if you like. Individual talking to them is the best way because everyone as you write the highlighted is everyone slightly different with this. It's concerning and I think we could all agree with that but it's difficult to try and combat if young people are trying to do it. Can I come back in very quickly as well? Yes, of course. Thanks for that because I mean I absolutely agree with the points you made there. Obviously teachers are going to be, as well as everything else they're doing in terms of trying to maintain home learning at the moment and all support that, all current, they will be a point of contact. Do you think they've got enough information about some of the things you were talking about the financial support access to digital health with digital poverty? I mean is that something you're aware of? You may not be able to comment on that. I can't say I personally know we don't, we always consult teachers that happen to be under 25 but we don't, we haven't in this sort of survey and it's difficult to judge and we only see the kind of receiving end of it and from young people and how they are seeing it. It might well be that they're highlighted but these young people are avoiding that or they're not getting the tailored responses because teachers are busy and they're super humans in their efforts and sometimes things get missed or have to be brushed by unfortunately which is important. I think the point made about the opportunity for just a chill space is really important because very conscious that it's not just school that's stopped for young people, it's all nearly all of the extracurricular activities and again organisations are trying to keep things going, let's get some guides online and everything. If you don't have access to online you're excluded from those opportunities so thank you very much for that. Very conscious of time so I'm going to move on to our final question as I don't see anyone else in the chat so and it's what's the impact of COVID-19 on young people's plans for the future and Kafton you're good to lead on this. Thank you convener and Kafton Mac, MSYP for Glasgow Southside. After consulting we found that school pupils and university students are very worried about the impacts of COVID-19 on their plans for the future. For example school pupils who responded to our survey said they're very worried about meeting the entry requirements to get into college or university and potentially having to change career paths, especially through estimated grades might not be as high as what their grades would have been in the final May exams. For example some respondents said I feel it will be much more difficult to be accepted into university and to even have a good job afterwards and also I think a lot of young people will be disadvantaged by the cancellation of exams and do reliance on these exams for university college apprenticeships. Some also noted that they're worried that they'll pass through vital life decisions during lockdown without all the usual processes involved in such a decision such as choosing which university to attend. One respondent said that I had to pick my university during lockdown without being able to go to applicant day's part. This really put me in turmoil and I still don't know if I made the right decision. Several respondent's positive response team has changed their plan significantly to pursue service and career for education paths, move out from your parents home or take a gap here. Some young people also indicated that they might need to leave education to help care or support their family including an S4 people who said for me it means I can't get a job to save up which is going to mean I can't afford a deposit to move out like I planned for this year. University students have also responded saying that they're very worried that the weakening economy will result in them being unable to get graduate level jobs once they graduate for internships whilst they're studying. For example, one university student in Ffordshire said I'm in my Ffordshire university and feel concerned at my graduate prospects of strong dramatically of summer internships cancelled in the lack of recruitment. Another university student respondent is saying they felt uncertainty regarding job security and the possibility of getting a job when lockdown is over. Also personally, as someone who will be starting my first year studying social sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University, myself and others in my course are very worried that once we graduate we might struggle to get graduate level job students in the weakening economy. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. That was really a very comprehensive contribution about where we are. I think this is obviously these questions on all our minds at the moment in terms of what impact they'll be in the long term of the economy and what that will mean in particular for young people who are moving on in their learning journeys and also into the workplace. But I've got both Jamie and Biertas want to go to Jamie first. I haven't actually put an hour in there, but I do want to reply anyway. Thank you. It's concerning and I'm not sure what kind of encouragement we can give because it's an issue that's come up time and time again. I've got a shadow education brief from my party position and obviously we're dealing with the colleges and the universities in terms of the opportunities that they're going to be able to afford to offer young people going forward, particularly if we have social distancing, which means that the impact of some of the real financial pressures they're under is going to be even more increased. I think with the universities it's almost, while you're missing out on the university experience, you can still do a lot of the courses via online and that will be the same with some of the college courses, but there's a huge number of those college courses that simply cannot be delivered remotely and that's a real concern around that and obviously apprenticeships. I was talking to an organisation only a few days ago that of course not only will there be less opportunities to do or fewer opportunities to do apprenticeships, but those companies that provide apprenticeships will be under financial pressure themselves. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on this to make sure that we've got an offering for young people and for those in university and of course to make sure that the economy is in the right place so that the jobs are there because the last thing we need is huge numbers of particularly young people struggling to find jobs right at the start of their career. So it doesn't bring any great comfort or comfort, but I think we all recognise the severity of the problem or what we need to be doing. Beatrice, do you want to come in? Yeah, I would just echo what Jamie has said actually. Catherine, you gave a very good comprehensive report there, but we are live to many of the issues that have been described. There aren't many answers at the moment, but making sure that the economy is on a sound footing so that your generation can get the opportunities and the life experiences that those that have gone before you have had is certainly very much a focus. Indeed. One of the concerns that we did have, Catherine, and I don't know if your survey was able to indicate this, is that a lot of pupils, a lot of students are deciding not to take the next step and defer for a year is an impact that would have on universities who of course, and colleges of course, who are also facing the possibility of decline in students from out with the UK and the problems that that will bring to them. But are you getting a sign of the level of deferals? I'm not completely sure about deferals, but some respondents definitely noted that they're very worried that they'll not get the grade seeded to get into university, so they might have to repeat a year or have to change career plans or maybe let's say could always before going to university change their plans completely. I know that personally, if I had been in S6 right now back when I was in S6, one of my conditions to get into Glasgow Calwe was to get a C at Nat5, Boy Scales Mass, the mud of in my premium, it was a D and then I managed to get a C to get the conditions and I know that if I had if I hadn't been the thing that's all I can hear and echo some right okay so if I had been in this generation I would have been snookered, I wouldn't have bought into Calwe and I would have had to feed contingency ponds. I think we should emphasise that the evidence we are getting from SQE and what the vast of teachers is, yes the prelim plays a part, but they are looking to look callistically at the pupil and know the pupil and to make an estimation based on your own and I think Cameron mentioned earlier the same for him, where the prelim hadn't been a great result, but they were you and he were both able to pull themselves back. So I think it's worth emphasising that it's not just prelim for young people because I think that would just compound some of those anxieties and at the moment we're waiting to see but we're trusting that the teachers have done the adults diligently which would expect to happen and they were waiting to see what the outcome is from the SQE and look to what's happening in the summer and I would say I think our universities and colleges are cognisant of the fact that it's not been a normal year for young people either indeed the you know very early on some of the further and higher institutions took the decision not to have a exam diet for for the first and second year pupils and their students on the basis that you know that they were confident with the end of the degree or the diploma phase they would be able to get people to a particular standard and as Jamie said that becomes more difficult when you're looking at practical and apprenticeship based qualifications and also those that involved a huge degree of you know the physical intervention in terms of signs and you know some of the CAF subjects, arts all of these areas where we've just not been able to to do those assessments so you know I really appreciate that you know your contribution in terms of how comprehensive that was about the anxieties and the problems that young people are facing and thinking about at the moment so I'm looking I don't see anyone else to oh no Martin wanted to come in sorry Martin yes I think it was just something it's a comment that I wanted to make based off the back of discussing things like not having exams and things across all points of transition I am a final year university student and I've had to still complete dissertations and still complete exams and things and I think for some universities and for some colleges and things that's been something that they've had to continue through as well but what I think is worth commenting on is the fact that they've tried to put as many procedures in as possible and obviously it's different by each university in terms of who they're examining and how they're grading things but I can speak for my local university when they've put as many measures in place as possible to ensure that young people's future weren't being disadvantaged and that things that grades were being accounted for at different scales and with different criteria against them so I think it's just worth highlighting that there has been an attempt across all points of transition both school and university to try and counter the anxieties and to try and counter that as well. Sorry I missed Sophie wanting to come in earlier. I'm personally going into a six after the summer and I know from hearing friends who are also going into the same year that there's lots of worry about next year's exam diet as well as this year's with people not knowing whether this will go ahead or if it will go ahead but just differently than normal and I think there's a lot of concern that young people's fifth year and sixth year exams won't be as normal and this will really affect in the future and especially next year if they do go ahead but schools are running with blended learning from home and school this will really affect it as well so I think there's a lot of concern in my age group that two years worth of exams will be affected. Yeah yeah and Catherine wanted to come back as well. Yeah it's also echoed Martin's point about universities. I'm studying at Calais and Calais has been very supportive in beef pad or online learning and it works very well under exams where all cancelled and grades were just based off of coursework that was very decent actually we felt very, I personally felt very calmer through that because of coursework and they'd been taught what to do for the essays that we had to still hand in so that was very good and I think other universities have also been very helpful too but I think for the future our worry is more about can we get internships because internships if companies can't even afford to run will they even be able to run internships like normal because it's hard enough to get internships if you're a third year student let alone if companies are shutting down and then they might not be able to afford to offer internships to students it might be even more of a race to the bottom for internships and even more of a race to try and get a graduate level job once you graduate because it's a lot of people before COVID people are worried anyway about getting graduate level jobs of Brexit as well that's worrying people about getting a job I think COVID along with that it's also making it very worrying for students that are really going to struggle to get graduate level jobs. Yeah it's a big big challenge as someone who was in your situation in the 80s when we were facing levels of unemployment and drops in the economy that we've seen I remember having very very much those concerns myself at that time but thank you for that I'm afraid we're going to have to move to our final agenda item and that's an update on the PSE report and I think Liam's going to lead on this. Yes thank you can be there and it's just to highlight a few things I'm not promised a look right at the meeting. I apologise if my dogs decided now is the opportunity she wants fed if there's any noise. We also recommend a PSE report and a consultation earlier in the year a couple of members led on that and then we naturally and March was ready for Lord we kind of pushed it back a wee bit until just a couple of weeks ago and we found six recommendations about PSE we are aware that your committee has done a review as well and that we decided it's still very prevalent and there's still fundamental issues with it. Recommendations include set curriculums and more lessons focused on mental, social, emotional and physical well-being and focus more lessons on life after school more on section wealth relations etc and I'll I don't want to take too long so I invite you I'll send it over to you as I'll invite you to have a good look at that. Our committee has also put out to members motions for to rest of Scottish Parliament to become policy based around the attainment gap and resourcing to ensure it doesn't widen in the aftermath of COVID-19 and the sound adequate support and the providing to young people making the transition from school to university, college or employment etc and as well as that in terms of attainment gap and other education needs we are asking more in light of COVID-19 in our manifesto which is our most important policy making mechanism in that we do every five years and so when we urge out the findings of these and we start to act on it and we look forward to working with the committee and then all of that. Thank you very much for taking the time as well to listen to young people in this setting and it does it does really mean a lot. Thank you very much I'm just looking to save Beatrice or Jamie want to make a final comment I'll bring them in. We absolutely value our time with the Scottish Youth Parliament you've contributed in my time on the education committee to so many of our reports and we couldn't produce the work that we do without your contribution so thank you very much for taking the opportunity to come and speak with the committee this morning and as predicted Jamie and Beatrice won't both want to say something to you so bring Beatrice in first. Yeah well I just want to echo what you've said Claire and I mean although I'm relatively new to to this these proceedings have only been elected last August I have found it very valuable to hear the views of young people and the input from the Scottish Youth Parliament so and I do thank you very much for your time this morning it's been very helpful. Jamie. Yeah absolutely we can sometimes feel very distant apart from friends and family and anecdotal evidence we feel very distant from some of the people on the call face it's really useful to get that experience your feedback particularly as you're you know funneling information into it from your members and young people so thank you very much and I look forward to hearing from you all very soon. Thank you for the survey work because it's not something we've got the capacity to do it's certainly not something we're seeing being done elsewhere so that survey was absolutely valuable and I'm making sure that shared information is shared to the committee this morning.