JOHN Swinney has been mocked after inviting politicians to a drop-in session where his officials will demonstrate controversial tests for five-year-olds.
The Education Secretary wrote to every MSP in Holyrood in a bid to defend standardised assessments for primary one pupils.
He asked them to attend a “drop-in demonstration of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments” on Tuesday, adding: "The demonstration will be conducted by Scottish Government officials."
He wrote: “The demonstration will offer the opportunity to view an example of the P1 assessment, as well as the chance to see the information it generates for teachers.
“In order to ensure parliament’s consideration of this issue is as informed as possible, I do hope you will be able to attend.”
It comes as opposition leaders are expected to join forces next week to vote for the tests to be scrapped.
Scottish Labour’s education spokesman Iain Gray branded Mr Swinney’s latest move “desperate”.
He said: “The idea that civil servants performing the tests to MSPs is in any way equivalent to the pressure felt by a four-year-old sitting them is utter nonsense.
“If John Swinney truly wants an informed debate he should listen to the calls from teachers and educationalists who say the tests are useless, or the parents of traumatised children who do not trust them.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the offer was “odd”.
He said: "I am much more interested in what teachers and parents have to say about these tests than I am in watching John Swinney's civil servants push buttons on a screen.
"Teachers, campaigners and EIS Scotland have lambasted these tests as a waste of effort yet the Education Secretary is point blank refusing to listen.
"The clock is now ticking down until Parliament votes to scrap them. The only question left to answer is whether John Swinney will then do the right thing and change course."
Next week’s vote is expected to be brought forward by the Scottish Tories.
While a Holyrood defeat would not be binding for the SNP Government, it would be politically difficult to ignore.
The literacy and numeracy tests have sparked a huge backlash from parents, teachers and unions since they were brought in last year.
Children are assessed in P1, P4, P7 and S3 to help teachers judge their progress, but there have been claims some five-year-olds have been reduced to tears.
Mr Swinney previously announced a shake-up of the assessments, insisting they are “absolutely not a test and should not feel like one”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel