Scottish schools stuck 'in spiral of decline'

SCOTTISH education is on a downward spiral and must embrace radical new ideas to avoid falling further behind England, a senior academic has warned.

Eric Wilkinson, professor of education at the University of Glasgow, accused the SNP government of ignoring fresh thinking and said Scotland's education system was stuck in a "mudpool".

Prof Wilkinson spoke out after The Scotsman revealed that the SNP-led East Lothian Council had floated the idea of educational trusts.

Trust schools are where a group of schools in a defined community form a trust and take greater control of school budgets to target spending towards specific local needs.

The proposal is far more modest than the educational trusts pushed through by Labour in England. Despite this, Labour in Scotland has dismissed the East Lothian plan as out of step with the public.

Meanwhile, the SNP government has failed to outline a policy on trust schools.

Prof Wilkinson said it was exactly this lack of ambition to debate structural change that was damaging Scotland's education system.

He told The Scotsman: "In England, they are pushing ahead with huge innovations and having some success – particularly in London.

"In Scotland, we are still stuck in a mudpool – and undoubtedly, Scotland will start to slip behind unless it embraces new ideas."

The academic added: "Scottish education is on a downward spiral and it is vital for our future that we remedy that."

Prof Wilkinson said he feared the SNP administration was taking too narrow a view of education

"Post-devolution, education has become more parochial and I feel the SNP is now looking more at the immediate needs of the system rather than the wider picture," he said.

However, he indicated that some innovations were working and highlighted his own experience with Kirkcudbright Academy in Dumfries and Galloway.

"It is now one of the best state schools in Scotland, because they have innovated," he said.

"They have organised the school differently – three years of junior school and three years of senior school, rather than the traditional four plus two model. They have given the children extra support and put them all into Standard Grade at the end of S3 – then everyone is involved in both academic and life skills courses together in senior school.

"The results have been phenomenal. They are getting pupils into Oxbridge and others are getting good jobs locally.

"Fiona Hyslop has been to see the school but done nothing more – the vision they have shown there has been ignored."

Prof Wilkinson's comments echo the comments of Lindsay Paterson, one of Scotland's foremost educational experts, in July.

The professor of educational policy at Edinburgh University said that the idea of Scotland having the best education system was "one of the great education myths" – and that England was clearly pressing ahead because it had been prepared to embrace change.

Prof Paterson said England had done much to fund a variety of types of school, such as specialist schools, of which there are now more than 3,000, and more recently, foundation and trust schools.

He added: "England's education system may still have its problems.

"But the essential point is that attainment in England has improved much more than in the other three nations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland]."

The East Lothian Council proposal for educational trusts has led to criticism that both the SNP and Labour in Scotland are unwilling to innovate in the interests of school pupils.

Ross Martin, a former Labour councillor and strategist, is the only one in his party to break ranks so far. He wrote in The Scotsman yesterday: "We must recognise that our system needs change."

In what was a clear dig at his own party's Holyrood leader. Iain Gray, he said: "This brave step forward to start a root and branch debate about the nature of service design and delivery is therefore to be welcomed and not derided by the dinosaurs who simply seek to protect the status quo. Real reform demands real debate of real ideas. Can we leave the party politics at the door and have a real debate about our future and the future of our schools?"

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "These proposals for 'trust' arrangements in schools, which are at an early and relatively un-detailed stage, are not for 'trust schools' as they currently exist elsewhere in the UK.

"We understand that East Lothian Council is exploring the possibility of extending the arrangements that many Scottish councils – including, for example, Glasgow City Council – already operate for devolving management to headteachers and individual or clusters of schools."

He said the Scottish Government supported greater control for heads. But added: "However, this does not mean the adoption of the arrangements that exist for trust schools in England."