 Felly, y結時候 flaen month to assign centres, festivals, every year centres, schools, colleges and universities to see that inspiration in action. I visited the Jimmy Dunneke family learning centre in Glasgow, which has established a strong STEM preschool curriculum with hands-on activities and exciting topics. I saw for myself how those activities are capturing the imaginations of the centre's young learners. It was also great to hear about the partnerships that the centre has forged with South Clyde university and with the young STEM ambassadors from local schools, one of whom I had the chance to meet on my visit. Enthusing and engaging children from the earliest years in science, technology, engineering and mathematics is at the heart of the centre's activity. It was an absolute pleasure to see children exploring STEM in all its forms and this work is key to setting children of all ages, both boys and girls, from a range of backgrounds on a journey of wonder to learn, to question, to experiment, to problem solve, to always ask why and what is next. With some estimates suggesting that 65 per cent of preschool children will work in careers and jobs that do not yet exist, their future is truly one of opportunity. We must give them and the children that I met in Glasgow today the tools that they need to seize it. This STEM strategy has a clear focus and a strong purpose. Quite simply to be a nation with ambition, Scotland must become a STEM nation. If we are to realise the ambitions set out in our programme for government to build a modern, dynamic, open economy that benefits everyone in Scotland, we must support everyone in Scotland to develop their STEM capability and skills. All the sectors that feature in our vision for a high-tech, low-carbon economy have one golden thread. They all require workforces with STEM-related skills to develop and to grow. This strategy has been shaped by extensive discussion and dialogue. It began with debate here in Parliament, marking the start of the formal consultation exercise. That consultation was available online and included a series of events covering specific interests, such as education leaders, gender equality and business engagement. I also established a short-life expert reference group to provide support and challenge in finalising the strategy. This group was co-chaired by Professor Sheila Rowan, the chief scientific adviser for Scotland, who is here in Parliament today and Professor Ian Hunter from Strathclyde University. I am grateful to them and all the members of the reference group for giving so generously of their time and expertise. The strategy seeks to address four key challenges—the need to ensure that people are encouraged to develop an interest in STEM that is reinforced throughout their lives, to ensure that our education system has the right number of practitioners with the right skills to deliver excellent learning and teaching, to build a system that equips people with the skills that employers need and has the flexibility to respond effectively to change, and to tackle the gender imbalances and other inequalities that exist across STEM, education and training. It does so by focusing on four key themes and names. First, we must build the capacity of the education and training system to deliver excellent STEM learning. Earlier this month, the Deputy First Minister announced a new scheme to provide bursaries for anyone changing career to train as a STEM teacher. From August 2018, 100 bursaries of £20,000 will be available for people giving up an existing career to undertake teacher training in STEM subjects. The initial focus will be on subjects where we are currently experiencing a shortage in teacher training students, physics, mathematics, technical education and computing science. Applicants will be expected to have a relevant degree at a level of 2.1 above or above at the suitable subject content. Minimum entry requirements for teacher education courses will of course still apply, but we must also provide appropriate support and professional learning opportunities for teachers and other practitioners. We will create a new network of STEM specialist advisers to work with early years providers in schools to ensure that the sharing of best practice and emerging evidence is at the heart of excellence in STEM learning and teaching. The new network will be operational by December 2018, and advisers will work with the new regional improvement collaboratives being established in partnership with local government as part of our education reforms. To support STEM in learning in schools, we will continue to fund the Scottish Science Education Research Centre and our partnership with the Wood Foundation on the raising aspirations in science education programme, as well as investing in new resources for practitioners. Crucially, that will include support for STEM learning and inspiration in the early years, as we expand the early years workforce in Scotland. It is vital that we give everyone the opportunity to fulfil their STEM potential and contribute to Scotland's economic prosperity, so our second aim focuses on closing equity gaps in participation and in attainment in STEM. We will take action to improve the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM learning and to tackle unconscious bias in gender stereotyping that creates barriers to participation, access and attainment. That must start from the earliest years onwards and be sustained right through the education system at all levels. It will include action to tackle gender segregation and promote equality of opportunity in the early years, apprenticeships, college and university courses. We will work closely with the qualities experts in the third sector to create a dedicated team to embed practice from the successful Institute of Physics gender balance project across all schools by 2022. I have already spoken of the importance of inspiring children, young people and adults to study STEM and to continue their studies to obtain more specialist skills. The current UK STEM ambassador programme provides a strong network of action of support for education, but we can do more. We will establish a new young STEM leader's programme to stimulate the development of peer mentoring in STEM. That will start in 2018 and be fully operational by 2022. It will focus on children and young people who are currently in education to complement existing STEM ambassadors. Earlier today, I announced funding of £2.65 million to support the work and activity of Scotland's four science centres. I am proud that we are the only Government in the UK to provide such financial support to science centres. They have a key role to play not only in inspiring STEM and children, young people and adults, but also in helping to tackle inequity. We will therefore target our funding to enable the centres and science festivals to further encourage girls, in particular, and more generally people from deprived, rural and remote communities, to engage in informal STEM learning and experiences. The four theme seeks to connect STEM education training offer with the labour market need, both now and in the future. To increase collaboration and connection, we will create a new STEM hub network to strengthen regional level collaboration between partners, including universities, science centres and employers. That network will focus on building partnerships between secondary schools and colleges in 2018 and broaden out to include primary and early learning settings during 2019. Of course, colleges and universities in Scotland are already taking action to prioritise STEM teaching and courses. Our universities are world-leading and at the cutting edge of research and innovation across the spectrum of STEM disciplines. Our colleges increasingly play a central role in co-ordinating their approach to STEM across their regions and with partners, including businesses and employers, to deliver our aim of increasing modern apprenticeship starts to 30,000. We will build on that solid foundation in three ways. We will increase the number of college and university student placements with employers in STEM curriculum areas, increase the number of graduate and post-qualification internships offered with STEM employers and, to complement the approach that is being taken through developing the young workforce programme to improve careers and guidance from 3 to 18. We will ensure that college and university students have access to the best advice and guidance about STEM careers. However, we must also challenge our institutions to go further faster. We invest in our colleges and universities with confidence, but in anewr more competitive global economy, we must look to them to work with us and partners in industry to ensure that their curricular offer to students and support for researchers means world-leading and all those current. The STEM education and training strategy for Scotland is deliberately bold and ambitious. It has a five-year lifetime from 2017 until 2022, and delivery starts now. That focus on delivery must be relentless, so we will measure progress and success through key performance indicators. Work on developing those has begun and will be published by the end of the year. I will also chair an implementation group involving external advice to drive forward delivery. That group will produce annual reports on progress and provide these to Parliament. I am confident that, through the actions in the strategy, we can unlock the opportunities that the future holds for all of Scotland to flourish and thrive and become a STEM nation. This is not the Scottish Government strategy, nor even that of the Scottish Parliament, though I hope that all members and parliamentary groups will support it. It is Scotland's STEM strategy, Scotland's education and training strategy, in which everyone, through our education system, across the public, private and third sectors, and within key businesses and industries, has a role to play. I am proud to present it to Parliament today. The minister will now take questions for the next 20 minutes or so. I encourage all members who wish to ask a question to press their request to speak button now, and I call Liz Smith. Can I thank the minister for prior sight of her statement and broadly welcome the measures that she has announced? Although I have to say that it should be noted that some of the conclusions and recommendations are exactly the same as those that were contained in the SEAG report five years ago in 2012, which suggests that progress has been painfully slow. I would like to ask the minister a couple of things. Firstly, in 2015, the Royal Society of Chemistry made the call to have specialist science teachers in primary schools on the back of evidence that they had collected, which suggested that primaries 4 to 7 were the best ages to capture the imagination of young people when it came to science. The Scottish Government rejected that call on grounds of cost, but it has obviously since found money to support birth rates for graduates who might be persuaded into teaching from other professions. Can I ask the Scottish Government if it will now commit to a programme whereby a proportion of that bursary support will go into science specialism in primary schools? The minister is clearly very well aware of recent SQA trends in STEM. She will know that in 2007 there were 50,231 SQA higher entries in STEM and that there was a pleasing increase in numbers to 54,618 in 2013. With the new hires programme, however, the entries for 2016 were only 41,054, and for the same period, the number of STEM teachers in secondary schools fell from 6,037 to 5,864. Does the minister accept that notwithstanding recent demographic trends, this reduction in STEM teacher numbers is a serious part of the subject choice issue, which partly explains why insufficient pupils are studying STEM subjects at higher level? I thank Liz Smith for those questions. I take her up on one point, which I would disagree with, and that is the focus on saying that the idea of the best time to inspire young people is between primary 4 and 7. I was in an early years setting this morning with children aged 4 to 5 that were utterly engaged and enthused in STEM. The headteacher was very keen to press on the fact that we need to start at that stage, not wait until primary 4. That is in many ways because of the research that was shown particularly for young girls that say that by the age of 7 they already think what is a boy's subject and what is a girl's subject. I think that primary 4 is already too late. We have lost some young people to that. The point on the specialist STEM teachers, I said in my statement that we will invest in a network of specialist STEM advisors that will take their support and share the good practice that happens across Scotland into each and every individual school. Again, I saw great examples of that in the work that we have done in partnership with the Wood Foundation of the work that an advisor can bring to a collection of schools. That is why we have went along the process that we have. When it comes to the number of young people taking STEM subjects, she is right to point out to the fact that the school cohort is falling. S4 to S6 cohort between 2010 and 2016 has fallen by 5.6 per cent. That explains some of the statistics on STEM. We are seeing a 13.4 per cent more young people passing the full range of STEM hires between 2017 compared to 2007. We are seeing progress, but the point of the strategy is that it is not enough. That is exactly why we are putting in to a place today the schemes that we are to encourage more young people to the STEM choices. Within curriculum for excellence, when we are looking particularly at the senior phase, we need to look at the senior phase within three years and allow schools to have subject choices in a curriculum that is chosen at a local level but allows the young people there to have a wide range of subject choices available to them. That includes the sciences. Iain Gray Thank you, Presiding Officer. The minister will get no argument from us that Scotland must be, as it historically has been, a STEM nation, so a strategy to achieve that is certainly welcome. Is it urgent or bold enough? Liz Smith is right that since 2007 we have lost over 800 STEM teachers from our schools. An enrolment and pass-race in recent years in STEM subjects have not just fallen at a higher level but at national four and five levels too. Meanwhile, STEM teacher training places lie unfilled and maths alone universities have fell fewer than half of the available places. We have long argued for bursaries for STEM trainee teachers as an incentive, so those announced are very welcome. Can the minister explain why they are only for career changers? We urgently need new physics, maths and computer science graduates to choose teaching too. They need to be incentivised as well. The truth is, as long as our teachers are among the poorest paid and most overworked in the world, the profession will not attract the STEM talent that we need. What will the Scottish Government do to fix teachers' pay and workload and make it an attractive option for all graduates, but especially those in STEM subjects? As Iain Gray well knows, the teacher pay is negotiated through the Scottish National Committee for Teachers, which is made up from local government unions in the Scottish Government. Those discussions are on-going. The Scottish Government is playing its part in that process and is committed to securing an outcome for that. The Deputy First Minister has said many times his commitment to tackle teacher workload and has demonstrated that in his post, particularly around that fours and that fives. He talks about teacher recruitment, and I am pleased that he is welcoming the bursaries for the student teachers in those subjects. It is very important that we encourage more people into those areas, but that is only one of the actions that the Government is taking. We have invested £88 million so that every school can access the right numbers of teachers in this year alone. We are working with local authorities to increase the teacher numbers and to see an additional £253 a year. We are increasing funding and places to our universities to recruit teacher trainers and are teaching new ways for individuals to get involved in teaching. Unfortunately, we have seen that some of those places have not been filled, but when the figures are produced at the end of next month—the final figures—we still hope to see an increase in the levels from last year. Work is on-going, and the demonstration that we have made to continue to look at new innovative solutions through the new routes into teaching and the bursaries demonstrates our commitment on that subject. Thank you very much. We have had opening questions from the front bench. We will now make more progress to the rest of the questions. James Dornan is to be followed by Oliver Mundell. I welcome the minister's statement and the continuing recognition of the importance of STEM and the strategy that is laid out. Can the minister expand further on how she plans to strengthen STEM partnerships between schools, colleges, universities and employers and encourage things such as work-based opportunities for students in STEM curriculum areas? We are already seeing strengthening partnerships between schools and colleges and employers, increasing those opportunities for young people to undertake work placements through the world of work and the DYW programme. That includes a growing number of apprenticeships, foundation apprenticeships that already start at school, as well as modern and graduate apprenticeships. However, we will build on that through the work that we are doing in the STEM strategy that I discussed around the new network for STEM hubs. That will be very important to link secondary schools and colleges in its first instance before broadening out to wider collaboration. It is important that we get the different sections of the education system working coherently together to build inspiration and enthusiasm within STEM and ensure that more young people not only take STEM within school but then go on to take it within college, university or an apprenticeship and get involved in the STEM careers. In February 2017, as part of the Scottish Government strategy to encourage greater uptake in STEM, it recommended that STEM graduates would be able to undertake postgraduate courses at the same time as undertaking the probationary teaching course. Can I therefore ask the minister how many graduates took up that option in the academic year 2017-18 and what plans the Scottish Government has to extend it? It is very important that we look at different ways of getting individuals into teaching, not just those that are within university at the moment and doing their first degree, but also the career changers that the bursaries are looking into. I will write to the member with the details of the specific numbers, but what we are demonstrating in that scheme and in the other schemes that I am talking about today is our commitment to look at a wide variety of different options to allow people to come into STEM subjects and to STEM teaching from different variations. One of the challenges that I have heard when I am going about on my visits is to encourage people on their first degree that they may never have thought about taking teaching as a profession. I have seen excellent examples in the University of Glasgow, particularly in computing science, of those who are in their first degree moving into STEM teaching, which is a particular challenging area. However, I will write to the member with the specific details that he asks for. I remind members that I am the PLO for education. Can the minister explain how the Scottish Government will support external organisations in linking the STEM strategy to curriculum for excellence, particularly with regard to the experiences and outcomes contained in the science curriculum area? One of the great opportunities that we have within STEM and encouraging interaction with STEM is the great deal of goodwill from businesses, from employers in the private sector, who want to get involved in what is happening within our schools, colleges and university, and who want to bring that expertise and inspiration into the school setting. The challenge that we have perhaps at the moment is that there is a plethora of great ideas out there. Many of them are in the senior phase and those that are already interested in STEM, rather than in primary school or even early years. One of the aspects that the strategy will look at is that Education Scotland will bring all that plethora together, bring it into a collaboration where teachers and educators can look at what is relevant to the area of curriculum for excellence that they are already or about to teach their class and see which project is most beneficial to them. I hope that that will bring the best out of what is already in offer and will encourage more of the private sector, more employers and more businesses to get involved in primary schools and the early years setting in particular. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by Clare Adamson. The strategy gives key responsibility to Skills Development Scotland for improving gender equality into STEM careers. Given that, last year, only 40 per cent of MA starts were women and that that figure has declined since 2012, is it right to put such confidence in SDS? Is she proud of that track record that SDS has and apprenticeships in STEM? I think that one of the issues that we have to face up to is that we have challenges with the number of young women who are taking STEM subjection schools, apprenticeships, college courses and university courses. Those are facts that we have to look at very realistically to see how we want to tackle them. SDS is doing a great deal of work particularly around apprenticeships to encourage employers to see the benefit of taking on not only more apprenticeships but more women apprenticeships and that work is on-going. It is a challenge that we are all going to have to face all the way through that we see young women decreasing in their interests within STEM as they go on to specialise in different areas. SDS will have to face up to this challenge just like the Scottish Funding Council will have to face up to our universities and our colleges, but they are well up for that challenge. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I draw members' attention to my declaration as a board member of CERC and a member of the British Computer Society. Can I ask the minister whether the funding council will review the criteria and routes into teaching for computing graduates that would allow them to teach computing alongside other curriculum areas such as maths or physics, rather than being constrained by the current route of business studies departments in schools? The entry requirements for initial teacher education are set by the General Teaching Council for Scotland. The provision for the General Teaching Council to award computer graduates provisional registration and dual subjects already exists, providing that the student meets the entry requirements for teacher education in which state that the initial degree should have sufficient content of the subjects that will be taught. From August 2017, further flexibility for dual registration has been created so that probationers who hold or who are working towards a teaching qualification in two subjects can elect to do so their probation year in both subjects, thereby successfully gaining the standard for full registration in both subjects. That includes combinations of STEM subjects, including computing and maths. Ross Greer, to be followed by Mike Rumbles. In regard to the recently announced bursaries, I previously asked a written question on whether qualification will depend on the industry that the individual would work in and for how long they must have been in the workplace to be eligible. The Deputy First Minister confirmed that eligibility will not be based on the industry and the ministers confirmed that it will be based on qualification. However, could I confirm for how long an individual must have been in the workplace to qualify as a career changer and why the Government believes that to be the correct criteria? More than happy to speak to Ross Greer further about his suggestions about how the bursary will work in and be as particular issues, concerns or suggestions around particular areas, we are more than happy to look at that as we progress into the detail. The important aspect about the scheme is to try and encourage more individuals and from a variety of STEM industries to bring that STEM experience and that work-life experience directly into the classrooms. If Mr Greer has particular suggestions about what would make that scheme more successful, I would be more than happy to work with him on that. Mike Rumbles, to be followed by Gillian Martin. By what date does the minister expect that the teacher shortages in STEM subjects will be overcome, particularly in the north-east council areas of Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire? As I said in my answer to other members, the Scottish Government is undertaking a range of different initiatives to deal with the challenges that we have around teacher recruitment, particularly around some STEM areas. The bursaries that I have just spoken to Mr Greer about are one of them. If Mr Rumbles would like to take the same positive attitude that Mr Greer is to work with the Government on positive suggestions, I would be more than happy to hear that. Gillian Martin, to be followed by Jamie Halcro Johnston. So, as someone who taught a technology subject at FE level up until last year, I warmly welcome the statement on STEM strategy today. The minister will be aware of the economy committee's recent report on the gender pay gap. Can she outline how the STEM strategy will help a gen address closing the gender pay gap, given that STEM sectors are generally better paid than most and are still stubbornly gender segregated? Gillian Martin raises a very important point that we not only look at what happens within school and the education system but what happens when young people, particularly young women, take up posts within STEM industries. Scotland's full-time gender pay gap at 6.6 per cent remains below that of the UK and is marginally higher than the year before. However, we have come a long way, but not far enough. Ms Martin should be assured that equality for women is at the heart of the Scottish Government's vision for an equal Scotland. Our programme for government contains a number of commitments for progressing, including legislating for gender balance on public boards and confirming the full membership of our advisory council on women and girls. We will continue to keep pushing for further progress and taking decisive action to tackle the drivers of the pay gap. While powers over flexible working, including parental leave and pay are reserved to the UK Government, we are doing all we can to ensure flexible working practices by funding, for example, the family-friendly working Scotland, which is working to change workplace cultures. We are also investing in programmes to help women to get back into work after a career bake, including in relation to STEM. Jamie Halcro Johnston According to Skills Development Scotland, in 2015-16, only 79 of the 1,458 young people starting engineering and energy-related modern apprenticeships were female. In 2016-17, that number had fallen to only 67 of 1,185. That is just over 5 per cent of those young people starting engineering and energy-related modern apprenticeships being female. Can the minister tell us what real progress she is aiming for over the course of this Parliament in terms of the number of young women starting engineering and energy-related modern apprenticeships? As I have already said in answer to a previous question, that is something that SDS is looking at in great detail. It has a gender action plan that sets out the work that they will be doing within their work, within apprenticeships. We are also seeing gender action plans for the Scottish Funding Council and our universities and colleges to tackle the gender gap that they have within some of their STEM subjects. That is something that is going to be difficult to see progress on, but we have to see progress. The figures that you have pointed out today show the very wide gap in the numbers of women and men that are coming forward for apprenticeships. Part of the way that we are also looking to do that is through careers advice and the opportunities that are presented to girls when they are still at school, both in terms of their subject choice. When they are looking at avenues and opportunities to take up apprenticeships, particularly with engineering, they might not be the first thing that will be presented to them. They might not also be something that other influencers, including parents, families and other teachers, might present to them as a positive option. We have a challenge to take on in inspiring not only young girls to take part, but also for families and for educators to see the real opportunities that women can have when they take those courses on. That is why the work that I talked about on careers advice and ensuring that careers advice between 3 and 18 ensures that we are looking at the advice that young women are getting, including among the apprenticeship offers that they take within engineering. Like others, I warmly welcome the fact that the strategy sees training and recruiting new STEM teachers as a priority. However, inspiring young people into STEM will also be key. Can I ask the minister to say more about the young STEM leaders programme and how that initiative will be taken forward, especially to engage young people from deprived communities? The young STEM leaders project will work alongside the UK ambassadors network for STEM ambassadors. One of the aspects that works particularly well is when young people inspire other young people to take on STEM opportunities so that they can see someone from their own community, off their own gender, off their own background, taking on STEM subjects, succeeding in them and seeing their career opportunities afterwards. I saw that when I was in Glasgow this afternoon. This morning, the work that I was doing between young people at a secondary school, inspiring people in a primary school and inspiring people in an early year setting, and the work that goes on between university students as well. That work has been proven to see a real change in attitude, not just among the students but among teachers. That is why we are looking to make that more systemic across Scotland. Can I thank the minister and members? That concludes our statement on STEM. We will now move to a statement from Aileen Campbell on diet and obesity. I will just take a few moments to change seats.