It is increasingly evident that longstanding beliefs about the purpose and nature of school education are being challenged. Global affairs, including the pandemic, conflict, population displacement, the digital revolution and climate change, are all affecting how we live, learn and work.
Here in Scotland, poverty, job market uncertainty and stressed public services all contribute to feelings of anxiety about the future.
Education cannot be immune from these seismic pressures, yet significant debate about their implications for our young people is strangely muted.
This situation is coupled with teachers facing increasing challenges in their classrooms, particularly in relation to meeting additional support needs, fluctuating attendance and concerns regarding pupil behaviour.
‘Worryingly narrow’ debate
Over the past decade, we have seen an enhanced focus on creating a fairer and better education system, but the parameters of the policy debate have remained worryingly narrow.
We need to think much more deeply about how school education can best equip our young people - our future leaders - to thrive in an environment of constant and deep economic, social and geopolitical uncertainty.
We need a strong and shared understanding of what a “Scottish education” aims to achieve and the associated experiences and pathways necessary to get there. However, establishing a common understanding of - and commitment to - fundamental purpose will be both complex and highly contested.
This is further complicated by the range of reviews that have been undertaken and the hiatus associated with the forthcoming Scottish election.
Without clarity of purpose, a focus on “delivery” can lead to a lot of effort with little real gain. Particularly in turbulent and uncertain times, we all need to be clear and steadfast in our commitment to purposes and values or risk a potpourri of incoherent policy initiatives.
Fresh narrative for Scottish education
Put simply, we need a fresh and well-thought-through meta-narrative for Scottish education that can support decisive action.
Central government and national agencies need to seek and welcome well-founded but challenging ideas. That means creating participative, deliberative mechanisms that move beyond light-touch consultation and avoid preoccupation with operational matters.
Issues of practice and delivery are vital but should flow from clarity of purpose and be seen as the professional responsibility of those directly involved in delivery.
A commitment to subsidiarity means placing those with the most relevant and up-to-date insight and experience at the heart of decision making. The key is to be clear about what decisions are best taken where and by whom, without the need for permission seeking from tiers of local and national government.
Of course, subsidiarity needs to be coupled with professional learning that is also driven by purpose. Effective professional learning needs to strike the right balance between meeting locally determined needs led by teachers and leaders and injections of fresh thinking and challenge from relevant sources, not least universities.
This will test the capacity of those working beyond schools to engage in ways that lead to real impact in classrooms.
Need for evidence amid ‘noise’
We also need a much more imaginative and systematic approach to evaluation, including formal accountability. Too often, decisions are unduly influenced by those making the loudest noise rather than clear and thoughtful reflection on well-founded evidence.
An independent, reformed inspectorate should not only make judgements about quality and performance at institutional and local authority levels, important though these are, but should also be an authoritative source of evidence and insight based on first-hand engagement that can provide an overview of the quality of education across the system.
In line with the fundamental thrust of this piece, inspection and other forms of evaluation need to operate in a context where purposes are well thought through, clear and lead to greater transparency and authentic improvement across the system.
If all of this is to succeed, we need to proactively and consciously build a networked learning system that can support professional learning across curricula, classrooms, schools, localities and professions.
There are already exciting examples where this is occurring organically, for example, in the and Dundee. However, if this is to become the norm rather than the exception, such a system needs to be at the heart of national policymaking.
It is our view that young people need and deserve a system that is driven by a strong sense of common purpose, embodies a reinvigorated professional culture, recognises the need for genuine subsidiarity in decision making and is committed to evaluation based on evidence and enquiry.
Christopher Chapman and Graham Donaldson are professors in the school of education at the University of Glasgow and members of the first minister’s International Council of Education Advisers.
For more on their insights, see
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