29/09/2011 Newsnight Scotland

counts. Tonight, the Labour leader Ed

Miliband forget the name of one of the candidates to be the party in's

new leader in Scotland. Does it tell us more about Ed Miliband or

can mark -- Ken Macintosh? Also to light, what should we

expect from Scottish Studies in schools? Is it a legitimate

attempts to teach children about our background, or a plot to

indoctrinate with nationalism? It was all going relatively

smoothly for Labour at their conference, and a suppose it

grilling from real people which appears to leave Ed Miliband

unscathed and even enhanced. Then he sat down with an interview and

was asked an innocuous question. Tim Reid spent the week at the

conference. My point on this is we have got to

argue against separation and separatism, but we have to argue

for the union in a more positive way. It has to be about the

positive case for the union. He told delegates this himself on

Sunday night, at a Scottish debate attended by all three candidates

seeking to become Scottish leader. On Monday the Scottish party was

given it the power to elect their new leader. Today, a chance for us

to ask Ed Miliband to flesh out his views.

We have bought a lot about the dangers of separatism. We should do

more to say what the positive benefits of it now -- are. Our

shared institutions like the BBC, the NHS and the armed forces.

Not many delegates argued with that, or the idea of letting the Scottish

party decide his future. But there has been an undercurrent of

discontent with the candidates. This is a. We put to the Labour

leader. It is completely wrong to write

people off before you have got into a race. Before you have even

started. Can you name the three of them? Yes., Tom Harris, areas a

Joanne, and a third candidate who is also there. And he is all the

front-runner, Ken Macintosh. Macintosh, yes. He is the front-

runner, but you cannot remember him. The is afternoon, consolation for

colleagues -- from colleagues after a telephone call from Ed Miliband

to apologise. I thought more was made of it. He

did about 12 or more interviews in a row, and I forget the names of my

children half the time. The other candidates were not eager

to comment. MP Tom Harris would not, at the other contender made lighter

I am totally delighted. But it did amuse the First Minister.

-- First Minister. Ed Miliband was unable to look name all of the

Scottish Labour candidates? --!. He got to out of the three, which was

more than most of the population! Ed Miliband said he was tired and

politician made mistakes. Not all people have been so forgiving. They

suggest the current candidates are simply not high-profile enough.

It tells me that Ken Macintosh is not actively lobbying Ed Miliband

to back him, because in the old days, it was the Labour leader who

chose who was appointed. They were all a anointed. There was a real

contest here. The thing about gas is they can

damage some folks, but others can get away with them.

You would be to recite it? Kenya? As the curtain fell on this

conference, the leader's memory seemed back intact, remembering the

words to the Red Flag and Jerusalem. But perhaps as the head home --

heads home, Ed Miliband may feel he does not get Scotland as much as he

thought. No sooner do get control of the

government that you set about brainwashing the children. That was

the response of opposition politicians this summer when the

SNP announced plans for a separate Scottish Africa a school subject

called Scottish Studies. More details have been given at Holyrood.

But the question remains, why do we need a new topic on the curriculum?

Do our children not already know about Scotland's story?

What is Scottish? Welcome to the White Heather Club, coming to you

from Scotland. Which of these truly represents our

country and people? Of course, the answer is that they

are all Scotland. Perhaps our ancient universities should be

thrown in, and you get the picture. But what of this do not already

know? What aspects of that can we expect our young people not to

learn as they go through life? Pas of the challenge is that you'll

probably find a lot of that information exists in different

part of the curriculum. Something like Scottish Studies will allow a

lot of those areas to be pulled together in a more coherent manner.

Certainly a lot of the research suggests that children tend to be

relatively aware of most of the historical context, and that would

have to be a core element, if not the only element of a Scottish

Studies Programme. Today in the chamber, the Minister

developed more detail, and previous complaints of Nat -- nationalist

brainwashing were absent. All young people deserve the

opportunity to learn about their own country. Those who still oppose

may wish to take a deep breath, to come away from their constitutional

obsessions... They obviously recognise the

problem we have, and see that Scottish Studies is healthy, normal

and is supported by people across the spectrum and across the world

of education. It is also supported by parents.

The proposal is in a transitional period. It is more of a hearts and

minds policy than a party political one. It should be a robust addition

to the curriculum which will give children an advantage if it is to

succeed. If I felt important aspects of

Scottish Studies which were essential components to be better

education up our pupils which were not currently being taught, I might

have a little more sympathy with the SNP. But within all the

research I can find, there seems to be a wealth of evidence which tells

us that there is already very considerable and good quality

coverage of Scottish literature, language, politics, culture and

history. But academics are not convinced.

Learning about Scotland means learning about all aspects of

Scotland. The government is very happy to do that. It might be

argued that one of the reasons for the SNP's success is that the other

parties have simply not taken Scotland on board enough. The idea

that Scotland is something to be ashamed of is a very strange idea

when you live in Scotland that Doris got. Scotland was oddly be

better studied better -- Scotland was better studied in England than

in Scotland 50 years ago. History was more integrated between the

four nations, and writers were widely taught in English schools.

That has changed. At the national palate is surprise

that it does not already exist as a subject.

It is not mandatory to even study a single Scottish text to set -

repressive your high as in Scotland. I think that is ridiculous. I do

not want the literature that says all fancy things, I wanted to be

the kind of literature that is critical of Scotland, that looks at

our culture and what we have become. If we do not examine what our

identity is and has been, and where it has come from, how can we look

The images and ideas of Scotland are well known to us all. The

challenges, how do we put them together into a story which

explains and entertains the next I am joined by Dr Alison Cathcart,

and allow three -- and Alan Riach and AL Kennedy. The are we not

supposed to teach people this anyway? We can fall into easy

assumptions about Scott being victims, without acknowledging our

role in the Empire and the slave trade. There is also a very ill and

sectarianism in Scotland which is not talked about. You quite like

this idea? It is a bit unclear, what is being proposed. Is it that

Scottish things being sneaked into other subjects or that there should

be and that extra, separate subject? You quite like both?

Before I went to university, I spent the some are finding out

about my history. Finding out about writers from Dundee. I knew nothing

about the town that I came from. I knew very little about the country

I came from. When I went to England, I knew that I was abroad. I did

nothing that was a terrible thing, but I felt I was abroad and an

English-speaking country that I would have felt a New Zealander

America. But it was not the British entity as I felt I had been taught

about. I do not even really sound as if I come from Scotland, because

I was taught that the way to be successful socially was to sound

not Scottish. If we have not been doing this stuff, why have we not

been doing it? Were have not been doing it for generations. There was

a time when it was legendary that the novelist Nigel Taranto was

being read by many people, and that was the only history scores were

getting. Now, Scottish literature is not a proposition. There is no

entitlement given to children in Scottish schools that they will

find out about this. Dandy, one of the great poets of Sunday -- of

Dundee,, 1 at Bury radical poet there has not been heard of in the

same breath as Robert Burns. There is now people coming into the area

to talk about this. For goodness sake, it is ridiculous that the

question should be raised. What would you like to see? You would

like to see a special subject, wouldn't you? I would like to see a

provision for it in all schools and university. Scottish history,

Scottish literature should be a normal part of the provision.

do you think? I would agree with Alan. There is now a higher history

exam on Scottish history. Otherwise, students do not have to do it. I

know from teaching at university that the history, knowledge and

understanding of Scotland and its past is poor. Is it? There has been

Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University for ages. If that is

there, and given that you are not suggesting that people should be

forced to study Scottish subjects at university level, what is wrong

with the system we have? You have a key question about people being

forced to do something. People always shy away from that. You have

to turn that around and say, what is an entitlement for people who

are studying in this country? It has something to do with the

knowledge of what this country is, its language, it paintings, its

music. All of these things have to be there. They have not been there.

They have not been embedded in the system for a long time. Are you

from Ireland or you worked in Ireland? I am from Northern Ireland.

A what is the situation there? was taught the history of Ireland,

1921-1972, which could raise a few issues at a school. I was taught

the French Revolution, twentieth- century Europe. I study for two

years in Dublin and Irish history is in there the whole way through,

offered alongside American history, Indian history, whatever. So you'll

agree at that level? The problem then becomes, let us teach Scottish

literature - is there such a thing as Scottish literature? Is there

such a thing as English literature or Irish literature? We tend to

think as English literature as being in the English language. I do

not think of AL Kennedy as a Scottish novelists. You do not want

to claim any literature for a country, because this is

international. I am not sitting here is a Scottish writer saying, I

won my text to be studied so I can make money, but I want someone in

school to know that they can succeed being the person that they

are, using the language that the use. That is difficult if you don't

see images of your country in movies, if you don't read about it.

If you do not hear Scottish voices as the voice of success. You're

going to go on repeating the mistakes. For example, Sir Walter

Scott - does it make sense to study him, as even historically, to

understand the Sir Walter Scott, you have to understand the history

of Britain as well as the history of Scotland. It would be better if

it was understood throughout England as well. Scotland exists in

his own historical sense with its own voices. The picture a finger on

it when you are talking about English literature being in a

language we call English. That is fine, that is good and we are not

saying that we should not study all sorts of things and literature in

translation as well, but when you say that we are going to do this at

the expense of studying Scottish literature, or studying literature

end the language of Scotland or in Gaelic, you're cutting yourself off

from a whole world of literary experience through hundreds of

years. N Ireland, it would never occur to anyone there was never

such a thing as Irish literature, would it? No. That presumably is

James Joyce? I can speak for the entire population, but yeah, I was

brought up with WB Yeats and was reading his poetry in the middle of

secondary school. In what other country is their culture and

history not hot where, every other country you go to it is taught and

it is not an issue, yet here, you can go through your education and

find out nothing about its culture or history. I was in a tutorial

recently and we had students from Scotland but also from all over the

world, and the Italian students knew about Dante, the German

students knew about Schiller, they had not read this selected works,

but they knew who these people were. Scottish students had veriest --

some have had very of Daisy a stick teachers but most of their teachers

had not given them the knowledge of Scottish literature. We are running

out of time. I want to touch on something that alluded to, if we're

going to teach more Scottish history, is there an issue then

about what exactly you teach? There is a greatest hits in Scottish

history, William Wallace, the Jacobite rising, Robert the Bruce.

You're always going to have to abbreviate in some way to make it

acceptable. The Covenanters, the Scottish Enlightenment? Someone

used the word indoctrination, but it is not indoctrination towards a

particular agenda, it is an indoctrination towards a subject.

Literature is there to introduce you to a whole range of experiences.

There is much more to Scottish history than William Wallace.

know there is. But you will know first-hand, history and Ireland is

almost more controversial than the present. And a milder form, these

issues arise in Scotland as well and it is no accident that certain

people with certain political views might provoke different aspects.

teach history. History can be interpreted in different ways

depending on what source materials you look at. We teach people to

think and argue, we do not indoctrinate. Are you trusting and

that front? Yes. We are in a country that is blighted by bigotry.

We need to look at the hot potatoes and get away from that stuff. And

move on. It takes you beyond the flag. It takes you deeper. We want