MINISTERS have called for an agreement on standardised testing of primary pupils to improve levels of school scrutiny.

Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, issued the call as she gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament's education committee on new legislation to close the attainment gap between rich and poor.

An Audit Scotland report from 2014 found there were no comparable measures available at a council and national level on the performance of pupils from P1-S3.

And Professor Sue Ellis, from Strathclyde University's school of education, has already told the committee councils should be provided with a national bank of tests.

Responding to criticisms that the Bill was "pious thinking masquerading as legislation" Ms Constance said: "We know that most local authorities do some sort of standardised assessment, but what we really need that line of sight on is in terms of what is happening in a classroom, to what is happening in a school, to what is happening in a local authority to what is happening at a national level.

"We know that various local authorities have different forms of standardised assessment and what we really need now to do is have an agreement on standardised assessment so that we can get that line of sight about what is happening at a very local level to what is happening at a national level.

"Comparisons between local authorities are indeed difficult because different local authorities are using different forms of standardised assessments and I therefore don't consider it pious for the government to be working towards a national improvement framework so that we get that clear line of sight. I would consider that purposeful and pragmatic."

The minister went on to defended the creation of the controversial post of statutory chief education officer, but stressed it would not necessarily mean councils appointing a new individual if there was already someone doing that job.

In 2003, the former Labour-led Scottish Executive scrapped national testing because of the concern teachers had become overly-focused on "teaching to the test" rather than educating pupils.

As a result, the national survey of five to 14 attainment, which tested every pupil in primary school and the first two years of secondary school, was replaced by a system of scientific sampling to track the performance of a proportion of pupils.

There have been concerns since then that the education system is now short of information that reveals how well primary schools are performing.