Teachers have claimed that the flagship Curriculum for Excellence plans for Scottish schools are doomed to fail unless more time and resources are freed up for staff development.

Teachers have claimed that the flagship Curriculum for Excellence plans for Scottish schools are doomed to fail unless more time and resources are freed up for staff development.

The changes to be brought in under A Curriculum for Excellence (ACfE) were due to affect pupils starting secondary school this year, but the Scottish Government announced a one-year delay last autumn to allow more time to prepare. Delay is not the official term - ministers are describing 2009 as an "additional implementation year".

However, the teachers' union Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) has argued that even this may not be enough in a context where growing pressures on education funding may make it hard for teachers to work on developing the new curriculum .

Herald Society asked leading figures in Scottish education what was needed this year to ensure the success of the new approach (see panel) and to meet the new start date for pupils entering secondary in 2010.

Ken Cunningham, General Secretary of School Leaders Scotland, argues there is some truth in the EIS concern about resources. "There are clearly a number of significant issues still to be addressed and the delay was needed to address them and allow staff the time to work on development. That is hard to do when staffing has been squeezed as much as it has in a number of authorities across the country. One year may or may not be enough, and it will also demand resources."

He says local authorities have to be realistic, especially where cuts have been deep: "It may be that you can't deliver your original aspirations where authorities have had particularly tough cutbacks and efficiency savings."

Cunningham says planning for assessment is a key issue for his association, which represents headteachers and deputy heads. "There has to be something in place that helps determine where pupils are. Third year is far too late. There is a sense that the curriculum will drive the assessment but we will be held to account for this and subject outcomes have to be firmed up pretty fast.

"There is a need for a reality check - yes, teachers should be freed up with more flexibility, more professionalism and more responsibility. ACfE is hugely ambitious and exciting, but has to be handled very carefully and cautiously."

Judith Gillespie, development manager at the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, says it is "ridiculous idealism" to ask teachers to determine what pupils learn and when on a school-by-school basis.

"The EIS is quite right: individual teachers in individual schools can't sit down and write the curriculum for their schools. It is complete rubbish to say they can or should and a waste of resources. We have to be practical."

In addition, ACfE isn't what pupils or parents really want, she says. "People use qualifications as a passport to the next stage of their lives, and they become a kind of currency. If the physics Higher from Kirkcaldy High School is utterly different from the one from Dalziel High School then neither of them is worth anything."

The new system could be problematic for universities too, she says. "Higher education can't build everything on 300-odd different curriculums coming from 300-odd different schools."

Gillespie thinks teachers and pupils could benefit from teachers having more room to develop their own methods and a degree of freedom, but warns that too much would make assessment impossible for the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Graded units within subjects, as has been proposed, would be counterproductive, she believes. "This is meant to be reducing the focus on assessment but they would increase it."

Brian Boyd, emeritus professor of education at Strathclyde University, says it is entirely legitimate for the EIS to focus on resources, and in particular the need for time for teachers to develop their skills in these areas. "Investment in service training and continuous professional development (CPD) is key to this.

"But budgets in local authorities are being cut and for many councils CPD is a soft target.

"It is ironic that nationally everyone is in favour, generally speaking, of ACfE, but it might be thwarted because of a fall in core funding."

He called for the government to be more upbeat about the new curriculum, and in particular to involve parents. "Parents are not sure at all what the implications are for the curriculum and I sometimes get asked to speak on the topic. But that is something that should be happening nationally, up and down the country, as soon as possible, or parents will feel marginalised."

The heart of the changes is that the curriculum isn't just about content, Prof Boyd adds. "We need to remove some of the peripheral content to allow real engagement with learning. That can't happen if teachers are always pressed to finish the Romans on Friday because the class has to start on the Egyptians on Monday."

"At present youngsters can get a strong message that it doesn't matter whether you really understand what you are learning as long as you can regurgitate it. We need to reduce the content of most subjects to a core so that time can be freed up to allow real exploratory learning."

Prof Boyd concludes that changes to assessment should allow more creativity - considering, for example, group assessment or open book exams.

Jim Docherty, Acting General Secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, says the key priority for teachers is to address the structure of learning in the first three years of secondary, and warns: "The introductory three-year period of the secondary curriculum is a disaster." Docherty claims that leaving any formal assessment until S4 or S5 will inevitably narrow pupils' subject choices earlier than in the past. "Young people will end up taking English and Maths and only three other subjects, where in the past they studied six.

"They will have made decisions by the end of third year that are to a certain extent irrevocable. The traditional breadth of the Scottish curriculum has always been one of its greatest strengths."

Docherty adds that major curriculum development work should not be left to classroom teachers. "This is work that should be done by people who are seconded to work on it full time and that will take resources."

A Cosla spokesman says: "Our understanding is that many councils have increased their budgets for education this year, although we acknowledge that finances across local government are very tight. Local government in Scotland is committed to the successful implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence and we are sure that it will remain a key priority for councils in the year ahead.

"We are in no doubt about the scale and complexity of the task and that it is vital that central and local government and education professionals continue work together to make Curriculum for Excellence a success."

A spokesman for the SQA says: "We are fully committed to the successful implementation of a Curriculum for Excellence and continue to engage on curricular change details with educational colleagues and partners at all levels throughout Scotland.

"The announcement late last year by the Scottish Government that the new examinations would be introduced in 2014 provides a clear way forward to achieving our joint goal of ensuring the smooth introduction of the new qualifications, which will support the needs of Scotland and individual learners."

STANDARD BEARERS

The Curriculum for Excellence reforms were launched in 2004 by the Labour Scottish Executive, and cover nursery, primary and secondary education. They are designed to free up teachers from what was perceived to be an overly prescriptive curriculum.

Instead of "teaching to the test", teachers are to be given scope to pursue learning opportunities, explore current events and pursue pupils' enthusiasms.

They are designed to help pupils develop four "competencies" to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society. There have been concerns that this will erode the importance of traditional subjects such as history.

Scottish Government ministers opted to delay the introduction of ACfE last October, to allow more time to prepare before the first pupils begin the new programme.