Reform’s plan for employment, education and training

SCOTTISH EDUCATION was once the gold standard of the world, but in the last twenty years has plummeted from being outstanding to just average. This has contributed towards the greatest period of uncertainty for Scotland’s young people, who have been left unguided and unsupported by the institutions intended to launch them into successful careers.

Reform’s ambition is to reinvigorate our state-funded schools to ensure that young Scots are given early and clear pathways into productive jobs in the new economy based around our ten natural centres of excellence.

Rather than sending half of school-leavers to universities, instead we will direct them into trades via technical colleges with multi-year funding thereby building meaningful career pathways that will be relatively AI-proof and create the most value for themselves, their families and their communities.

Our state schools are in crisis; out of just over 700,000 children of school age, 223,000 don’t attend school regularly. Parents are disillusioned with the Curriculum for Excellence and, in special needs provision, the SNP policy of inclusion has been exposed as an illusion. Head teachers are discouraged from excluding disruptive pupils and they are not in control of their school budgets or their teacher recruitment choices. Staff morale is at an all-time low and the attainment gap between rich and poor kids is widening.

Reform will return responsibility for Scottish education to the Scottish Government answerable to Holyrood

Reform’s economic plan will do a great deal to raise the value of teaching, attracting people into the profession and aiding retention. Following our first budget, for example, a teacher with five years’ experience on the main grade scale will immediately take home over £2,000 more a year without any change to their gross salary, and with even higher savings for chartered and head teachers.

Reform will abolish Education Scotland and return responsibility for Scottish education to the Scottish Government answerable to Holyrood and not sheltered by yet another quango.

As a priority, special needs provision will be reformed as the current system is not working.

Reform will provide advanced support to head teachers in maintaining discipline in the classroom by using exclusion as an essential tool. Neither pupils nor teachers are helped by having to endure bad behaviour and misbehaving pupils must be taught there are consequences for disruptive activity.

Reform will reboot the Curriculum for Excellence by placing a knowledge-based curriculum at its core.

It will restore rigorous examination as the primary method of assessment combined with standardised testing, reintroduce the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy and rejoin all international education surveys.

It will also give discretion back to head teachers over their school budgets and staff recruitment. It will ban mobile phones in classrooms.

Finally it will allow all secondary schools to apply for the self-governance model used by Jordanhill College School.

Scotland is blessed with a number of business sectors where we are genuinely world class owing to our geography, science and people. These ten natural clusters of excellence comprise Financial Services, Advanced Manufacturing, Energy, Food & Drink, Tourism & Hospitality, Creative Industries, Life Sciences, Agriculture, Fisheries and Marine.

Reform will create a joined up Scottish Skills Strategy

It’s time now to focus our resources in education, skills and training around these ten clusters to get our young people and our adults tooled up for this new, modern economy where they can earn well above the minimum wage and create prosperity for themselves, their families and their communities.

Reform will reallocate funding from the bloated welfare budget to create a joined up Scottish Skills Strategy. This will reboot the Apprenticeship Levy funding model and guarantee every penny is invested into apprenticeships linked to colleges.

Moreover, it will establish a First Job Passport to ensure every young person moves seamlessly from school into further education, apprenticeship, vocational training or employment.

It will also establish a Youth Entrepreneur Scheme with enhanced business education courses paired with private sector work experience and mentorship schemes with local businesses.

In addition, it will establish an Adult Re-Skilling Taskforce focused on lifelong learning, especially helping out-of-work adults into meaningful jobs in our ten clusters of excellence.

Finally, it will examine a new pathway for S3/S4 students into alternative technical education based on the successful Newlands Junior College.

As for universities, Reform will undertake a comprehensive review of university funding to ensure degrees are meaningful, value for money, and grounded in genuine academic merit rather than EDI or sustainability metrics.