This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.
The Scottish Government has gotten a lot wrong when it comes to education in this country.
In fact, the Scottish Government has gotten so much wrong when it comes to education in this country that I could quite comfortably dedicate this weekly newsletter to that point alone without having to worry about running out of material before the next Holyrood election.
Some of the things they’ve gotten wrong have been technical, background issues that have, nonetheless, had a major impact. Into this category would fall decisions such as the scrapping of the national survey of literacy and numeracy standards – a choice that was made in a desperate attempt to prop up the standardised testing regime that Nicola Sturgeon wanted to impose, and which left us with a huge data gap that has caused enormous problems.
Other things they’ve gotten wrong have been incredibly high-profile, like the approval and attempted defence of an utterly indefensible exam-results algorithm that targeted pupils from the poorest areas for grade reductions (and boosted the grades of some young people from wealthy areas) when exams were cancelled in 2020. That one, in case you’ve forgotten, was justified on the basis of fairness – until protests from furious students forced the government into one of the most abjectly humiliating U-turns that Scottish politics has ever seen.
Other highlights include having to publicly execute a........