The Scottish Government can look nationally at what the data tells it, but what is more important is that schools can use the Scottish Government’s insight tool to look at how their young people are performing locally. Schools can split the data in lots of ways—for example, they can look at it by Scottish index of multiple deprivation quintiles—and they can try different approaches.
Ross Greer mentioned that 4 per cent of young people in Dumfries and Galloway achieve no qualifications; I presume that schools there are trying different approaches to find a type of learning that will get back such young people’s engagement in their education and help them to achieve a positive destination.
A lot of work must happen locally. The insight tool provides a broader set of measures for schools to look at, such as the positive destination measure for school leavers; measures on literacy and numeracy, which have improved; and measures on the highest SCQF level achieved, which relate not just to SQA qualifications but to other qualifications, such as those from ASDAN, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the Prince’s Trust.
The Scottish Government has all that data at the national level, and schools have it locally. Schools can try different approaches for different groups of young people to see what their impact is. Schools must look at what works for young people.
One thing that underpinned “Building the Curriculum 3: A framework for learning and teaching” was an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report about equity and quality in Scottish education. The OECD talked eloquently about the Scottish system’s strengths, but it also talked about inequity in schools. A primary focus through the CFE work that we are all engaged in is to bring up young people who are at the lower end.
I do not have an answer, but schools can use local measurement tools to address the situation and try different approaches. The OECD said that many young people—particularly high achievers—are motivated by where they want to get to. If they want to get to university, they are motivated to work hard and achieve.
Way back in 2009, the OECD said that Scotland had not got quite right the support for young people who do not have an external motivation—who are not clear about what they want to do or who have not yet found anything at school that they are really good at. The OECD said that the curriculum must motivate those young people; we must find something that engages them again in education—whether that is a vocational course, a Duke of Edinburgh award or an ASDAN qualification. If they succeed in something, that will motivate them to move on to the next level.
The OECD challenged Scotland to address that situation. Collectively, across all our schools and local authorities, people are trying to do that in lots of ways.