Devolution reboot part 2: Putting pupils first

IT IS SOMETIMES SAID that the Scottish Parliament lacks powers to boost economic growth. That’s nonsense. This series of six articles examines different ways devolved powers could be used to make Scotland prosper. As I described last week, they are based loosely on the insights of the economist Edward Glaeser at the outset of devolution.

Good schools are central to a country’s economic success. Not only do they improve the lives and prospects of local children, they also attract investment from elsewhere.

As Glaeser pointed out, a mature economy like Scotland needs to attract businesses, and businesses invest where they can find skilled people to employ. Skilled professionals, in turn, are highly mobile and choose places to live and work where they can enjoy a good quality of life. A big part of that is excellent schools for their children.

Talk to someone who is moving jobs, and the chances are they will spend as much time discussing the local school they have chosen for their children as the job itself. Incidentally, for high-value professionals and businesses this can include private schools. This why the two-pronged campaign by Labour and the SNP against Scotland’s excellent independent sector is as damaging as it is vindictive.

Scottish schools – once famed for their rigour and academic excellence – have been declining for years

More broadly, for Scotland to prosper it has to produce a well-educated, skilled workforce ready to thrive in productive jobs in the modern economy. Instead, we see an education system in sad decline. Educational outcomes are hard to measure in comparison with other jurisdictions. It’s not like buying a car when you can judge performance and reliability pretty much instantly. Nevertheless, educationalists have developed methodologies to judge school performance. For example, the OECD examines pupil performance at age fifteen in dozens of countries around the world, including Scotland.

Meanwhile across the UK, universities and employers recognise widely accepted equivalents between the various exam systems which allow Scots students to be assessed alongside those from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within Scotland there are regular studies of the “attainment gap” between the poorest and richest areas at Nat 5.

The overall picture is clear, despite attempts by the Scottish Government to withdraw from international studies or question UK-wide data. The sad truth is that Scottish schools – once famed for their rigour and academic excellence – have been declining for years. They fell behind English schools more than a decade ago as measured both by GCSE/Nat5 results and PISA scores.

The late Alex Salomond used to talk about an “arc of prosperity” – small northern European countries that Scotland could emulate on becoming independent. On pupil attainment, however, they are all ahead of us. Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Norway are not only wealthier than Scotland but have better schools too.

School education is not just crucial to a country’s prosperity but also to raising the hopes and prospects of the poorest. Scotland has serious and longstanding socio-economic problems left behind by the switch from heavy industry to a service-based economy. As Edward Glaesar pointed out two decades ago, education is probably the single most effective policy tool available to government to help lift young people out of poverty and social deprivation. A visit to Copenhagen, Helsinki or Oslo tells you that well-educated people are rarely poor.

What’s gone wrong in Scotland? The Scottish Parliament inherited a school system that had endured a long post-war decline, similar to its English counterpart. But since devolution the two countries have gone in opposite directions. England – first under the Blair Labour government and later under the Conservative-led coalition – sought to learn from the success stories of continental Europe: they encouraged more experimentation and independence in school governance alongside curricular and qualification reform. The resulting rise in international ranking has been striking.

Scotland, by contrast, has sought to differentiate itself from England by doubling down on school uniformity and imposing the notorious “Curriculum for Excellence” – as ideological in inspiration as its name is Orwellian. As a result, Scotland has gone in the opposite direction to its neighbour.

It turns out we do not need to leave our friends in the UK to join the arc of prosperity – we simply need to emulate what works.

Actually, I don’t think it’s necessary to copy the English slavishly except in one respect. Policy-makers from all the main parties south of the border have had the humility to learn from the best overseas, and it is that learning process that has driven reform. Scotland should do the same.

Reform is hard because it means first admitting that we have got things wrong. That seems particularly difficult for the SNP which continues to defend policies which have sabotaged Scottish schools, but it creates an opportunity for everyone else.

Education has the second-largest budget in the Scottish Government, but it is arguably the most important area of policy for Scotland’s future. Scotland’s reformers need to give pupils the priority they deserve, acknowledge past mistakes and learn from the best.