Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has had a difficult gestation.
It is three years since it was introduced into secondary schools, but children who have just started S4 will pioneer the new National 4 and National 5 courses, replacing Standard Grades and Intermediates. Last month, the EIS teaching union was pleading for millions of pounds worth of teaching materials to help teach the new courses, while union members signalled their support in principle for industrial action over teacher workload relating to the new curriculum.
A reform as fundamental as CfE was bound to throw up some difficulties. Still, the concerns of teachers and parents about the new qualifications are legitimate. It is essential that pupils are properly taught and that the new approach achieves its aim of better equipping children with the broad-based skills and knowledge they need to thrive after moving on from school. The £1.5 million package of support to be announced by Education Secretary Michael Russell today, in response to the EIS calls, will certainly help.
Mr Russell will also use his speech to announce the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has now been tasked by the Scottish Government with assessing the impact of CfE. It has always been a weakness that CfE has never been subject to an independent external audit. Impartiality breeds confidence. The OECD has not become the pre-eminent arbiter of social and economic policies in nations around the world without being objective; if there are criticisms to be made, they will be made, though it will not upset ministers that the report is not due until after the independence referendum.
Nevertheless, it is important the Scottish Government continues with its own raft of assessments of how the new curriculum is bedding in, in view of doubts about the ability of the OECD's assessment methods to capture the strengths and weaknesses of any individual nation's education service. The new curriculum must be scrutinised from all sides and there should be a role for the expertise of Scotland's education academics in that.
Where much of the job of government is about administrative reforms to make public services run more smoothly, CfE is different in embodying a philosophy of learning. It envisages an education system that is not merely a machine designed to churn out pupils capable of passing exams; it puts forward a vision of Scottish education that maintains broad-based learning, but also introduces more cross-curricular working and an emphasis on achievements besides the exclusively academic judged purely on the ability to pass exams.
Philosophies always provoke debate, and that debate will continue, but pupils will wish to ne reassured that the new curriculum is working. This audit should achieve that and help ensure CfE serves Scottish children as well as it possibly can.
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