IT is just over three years since the launch of the Scottish Improvement Partnership Programme or SIPP. Announced to the great and good of education in 2013, the premise was that schools experiencing difficulties would be twinned with those punching above their weight. Not only was it a clear idea with an obvious aim – to help under-performing schools – Michael Russell, the then Education Secretary, underlined the Government’s commitment. The relationships between the schools would be for the long-term, he said.
Sadly, the reality has been different. The SIPP idea itself was sound from the beginning, but even before the three-year Scottish pilot was launched, it had been watered down, partly because of resistance from within the educational establishment. SIPP is based on identifying schools that need support, but many teachers have resisted the idea of their schools being seen as underperforming. SIPP had great potential, but once the machinery of Scottish education got hold of the idea, it began to come apart.
Another factor which did for SIPP was the change of personnel at the top. When the programme was announced in 2013, Mr Russell was Education Secretary and Alex Salmond was First Minister. Three years on, John Swinney is in charge of education and Nicola Sturgeon has succeeded Mr Salmond and, perhaps inevitably, the flagship projects of the past have fallen out of favour. Like her predecessor, Ms Sturgeon says closing the attainment gap in education is one of her top priorities, but one of the reasons that SIPP will not receive new funding is because the Government now believes in other ways of achieving the goal, chiefly the Scottish Attainment Challenge, which will focus on improving literacy and numeracy in specific areas of Scotland.
As a way of closing the gaps that exist in education, the Attainment Challenge has great potential, but there are danger signs in the scrapping of SIPP and the launch of another initiative. Quite rightly, many of those concerned about the attainment gap will ask why an idea that was launched just three years ago has been parked. The decision to stop funding for SIPP has also been taken in the face of a positive assessment by the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change, which says SIPP was making a demonstrable impact.
The sad fact is that the Government choosing to ignore such a positive assessment looks like short-termism in a sector that needs exactly the opposite: long-term planning. In 2013, the Scottish Government believed in SIPP; now it is no more and other ideas are taking priority, such as the Attainment Challenge and more powers for headteachers.
All or some of these ideas may work in the long term, but the point is that, in education, change has to be given time. Politicians will always be tempted by a flashy announcement, but the Government must commit to long-term policies and resist launching an idea and then scraping it if it has not borne fruit within four years.
In other words, the Scottish Government needs to learn a serious lesson: good educational policy does not coincide with the electoral cycle.
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