:00:12. > :00:16.will be in the same boat. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, we
:00:17. > :00:20.have had the annual ritual, exam results are the best ever, critics
:00:20. > :00:23.say it is because they have become easier. Supporters say it is
:00:23. > :00:28.because of the hard work of students and teachers. Are we
:00:28. > :00:34.asking the wrong questions? Is the examination system wholly
:00:34. > :00:40.misconceived, and how should it change? They are perennials that
:00:40. > :00:45.flourish in August. The exam results are out, yet again, pass
:00:45. > :00:49.rates are up. Are the exams too easy, or our students getting
:00:49. > :00:52.better? Have we lost sight of what the system is supposed to be
:00:52. > :01:01.testing? Of the losing something that was once the essence of
:01:01. > :01:05.education in Scotland? It might feel like we have barely
:01:05. > :01:09.had a summer, but some of the schools go back next week. With
:01:09. > :01:13.staff continuing to get to grips with the curriculum for excellence,
:01:13. > :01:19.and people's having to assume that the Scottish government's lifelong
:01:19. > :01:26.learning strategy will equip them for life at work. So, what is new?
:01:26. > :01:31.Have we changed direction, orally continuing along the same road?
:01:31. > :01:34.The phrase is jargon, but it is like when you go into a supermarket
:01:35. > :01:38.and they put in a self-service desk, and suddenly you have been doing
:01:38. > :01:42.your shopping very well for the last 40 years and suddenly you
:01:42. > :01:46.cannot do it anymore, and you have got to learn a new process. That
:01:46. > :01:49.will become more frequent, and the curriculum has to enable young
:01:49. > :01:54.people to be able to deal with these issues in a much more
:01:54. > :01:57.sophisticated way, obviously. They need to know how they learn, they
:01:57. > :02:01.need to know where they go for help at what happens when they do not
:02:01. > :02:06.understand things, and we need teachers who are able to show them
:02:06. > :02:10.what the barriers are to learning, and then to help them overcome them.
:02:10. > :02:14.The purpose of the curriculum is encapsulated in four capacity is,
:02:15. > :02:18.to enable each person to be able to be a successful learner, a court
:02:18. > :02:23.that individual, are a responsible citizen and an effective
:02:23. > :02:29.contributor. The Fergus no longer exclusively is on passing exams. --
:02:29. > :02:33.the focus. Teachers say they have always adopted this approach.
:02:33. > :02:38.Schools are not the problem. We are solving problems on a daily basis.
:02:38. > :02:44.What we need is everybody, industry, commerce --, us, colleges,
:02:44. > :02:50.universities, local authorities, government, working together to do
:02:50. > :02:55.their very best for all youngsters, and that means that we should be
:02:55. > :03:00.able to stretch and move people on, into school and university, and it
:03:00. > :03:06.means those that have struggled, for a lot of reasons, most of them
:03:06. > :03:09.societal, actually, getting the help and support they need to go
:03:09. > :03:12.further. As pupils get ready to launch
:03:12. > :03:17.themselves into the next academic year, can they be confident that
:03:17. > :03:19.they will emerge from school equipped with the ride on it --
:03:19. > :03:23.qualifications? To employers think they will have the work ethic and
:03:23. > :03:28.life skills that will make taking them on a viable prospect?
:03:28. > :03:31.From an employer's perspective, it appears that concentrating on
:03:32. > :03:35.qualifications means some skills are being unaddressed. Too many
:03:35. > :03:39.school leavers do not know how to communicate, present themselves or
:03:39. > :03:43.manage their lives. Schools need to be better engaged with businesses
:03:43. > :03:48.and the community. There is a number of businesses out
:03:48. > :03:54.there in Scotland in different sectors who are not experiencing
:03:54. > :03:57.school leavers having the attitude at the attitude for work. So, there
:03:57. > :04:01.does need to be a focus on this and a deliberate focus on this, it
:04:01. > :04:05.cannot just be something that happens by the bike at they hope
:04:05. > :04:09.that by teaching the rest of the curriculum, pupils will pick this
:04:09. > :04:13.up. There has to be a deliberate focus on making sure that pupils
:04:13. > :04:21.and students are going to be ready to go out there and get a job and
:04:21. > :04:24.fulfil their potential after they have left.
:04:24. > :04:28.And there is an owner's -- an onus on schools to forge relationships
:04:28. > :04:33.with businesses and employers, and for a more joined-up approach from
:04:33. > :04:37.families, commerce and the whole of society.
:04:37. > :04:41.The recession makes it more crucial that school pupils are as well
:04:41. > :04:44.prepared as possible to go out there and get a job once they have
:04:44. > :04:50.finished in their education. What the curriculum for excellence is
:04:50. > :04:55.designed to do is create a more learned that centred approach, so
:04:55. > :04:58.that the people is doing their own learning, so they are able to
:04:58. > :05:01.direct what they are doing themselves, and that kind of
:05:01. > :05:05.autonomy and taking responsibility for your own work is something that
:05:05. > :05:10.we hope is going to bear fruit in terms of the attitudes and the
:05:10. > :05:14.skills that pupils are displaying coming out of school.
:05:14. > :05:20.So, more focus on individual responsibility, on schools, on each
:05:20. > :05:24.and every one of us. Not forgetting the the need for qualifications.
:05:24. > :05:26.The relative merits and shortcomings of Scotland's
:05:27. > :05:32.education system have been the subject of debate for generations.
:05:32. > :05:35.It is bound to go on. But what head teachers, school staff back,
:05:35. > :05:37.academics at people's know is that with limited resources at a
:05:37. > :05:44.saturated jobs market, there has never been more pressure to get it
:05:44. > :05:52.right. I enjoyed by Edinburgh University's
:05:52. > :05:56.professor, Lindsay Paterson, and here in Glasgow by Murray Pittock.
:05:56. > :05:59.Lindsay Paterson, I am curious turn up at this in a fairly
:05:59. > :06:03.philosophical way. You wrote earlier on this week that he
:06:04. > :06:10.believed that what we test in exam systems has changed from 30 years
:06:10. > :06:16.ago. What did you mean by that? As illustrated in your film, we
:06:16. > :06:21.need a better focus on skills and processes. It is a process of
:06:21. > :06:26.change that has been going on for some time. In they pass, there was
:06:26. > :06:31.a focus on knowledge and understanding. Understanding a
:06:31. > :06:35.whole culture, relationships. That was an ideal, and was only obtained
:06:35. > :06:40.by outstanding students, and it was gradually being extended to a wider
:06:40. > :06:44.part of the age group. We have abandoned that in the last 30 years.
:06:44. > :06:48.Give me examples, because you clearly have been looking through
:06:48. > :06:53.old exam papers. For example, in English literature,
:06:53. > :06:59.we now focus much what skills analysis at the skills of using
:06:59. > :07:04.language, very important skills at things that are crucial -- crucial.
:07:04. > :07:08.They are not trivial, but on the same hand, we no longer expect even
:07:08. > :07:12.the best students have a wide grasp of the history of English
:07:12. > :07:19.literature at the relationship between it and society. Some of the
:07:19. > :07:23.best students do it, but his is not at the core of learning any more.
:07:23. > :07:26.Do you agree with that, Murray Pittock?
:07:26. > :07:32.This is a very long debate, the debate between knowledge and skills,
:07:32. > :07:38.but if you listen to what you have said, you said that in the old,
:07:38. > :07:42.knowledge-based economy, that only some people managed to do what they
:07:42. > :07:46.were supposed to have fulfilled their potential. Now you are saying
:07:46. > :07:50.only some people do that now. The key element being put forward in
:07:50. > :07:54.the film is that it is an attempt for more people to fulfil their
:07:54. > :08:01.potential, that must be the goal of educational excellence, however you
:08:01. > :08:06.define it. Also, although there is a balance to be found, added
:08:06. > :08:09.argument over where the balance falls, equally, if you say there is
:08:09. > :08:13.a completely knowledge-based curriculum, there would be a great
:08:13. > :08:18.debate over what should be in that. If you look back to the golden age,
:08:18. > :08:23.if you like, what we think of as the golden age of Scotland, the
:08:23. > :08:30.hero of the enlightened front -- enlightenment and student focused
:08:30. > :08:37.learning. The idea that learning should be useful, the principle of
:08:37. > :08:41.useful knowledge is at the core of the Royal Society of Edinburgh's
:08:41. > :08:44.mission statement in the 18th century. That is an instrumental
:08:44. > :08:54.bass to learning. I think this debate has been going on for a very
:08:54. > :09:01.long time, and I think at different But do you think we have the
:09:01. > :09:05.balance right at the moment? opinion would only be an opinion.
:09:05. > :09:12.The balance seems to be perpetually looked at an adjusted because
:09:12. > :09:15.things change. Society is changing very rapidly. Looking at society,
:09:15. > :09:20.we are increasingly looking at a range of problems that need to be
:09:20. > :09:23.solved and addressed, not by it looking at a body of inherited
:09:23. > :09:28.knowledge but by applying understanding to rapidly-changing
:09:28. > :09:32.context. Obvious criticism of what you were saying is that you in the
:09:32. > :09:35.past have been very critical of Curriculum for Excellence. Its
:09:36. > :09:39.defenders would say they are trying to cater for some of the points
:09:40. > :09:43.that you have been making, that part of the whole idea is to make
:09:43. > :09:48.students more autonomous and to take more responsibility for
:09:48. > :09:53.themselves in a broader sense than perhaps would be the case with a
:09:53. > :09:57.very narrow exam system. Do they not have a point? They have tried
:09:57. > :10:03.to move and they have indeed recovered some things but the key
:10:03. > :10:08.thing of course is that, two things, actually, one at that the
:10:08. > :10:13.curriculum was being extended. They range of people in the 1970s and
:10:13. > :10:18.1980s that were getting access to the best is far greater than it was
:10:18. > :10:22.100 years ago. It was not just for an elite. It was for a widening
:10:22. > :10:27.grin. The second point is that it is a complete caricature or of the
:10:27. > :10:34.old way of looking at Norwich, that it was not about skills. The idea
:10:34. > :10:37.was that through knowledge you gained skills. All of that is now
:10:37. > :10:43.being completely wiped out of history and there is this character
:10:43. > :10:50.sure of what was thought of as a exam based system of knowledge in
:10:50. > :10:55.the past. It is nonsense. The fact is it is not as clear-cut as that.
:10:55. > :11:00.There is the greater emphasis in the skills -- on skills in the new
:11:00. > :11:05.curriculum. But it is not a question of 100 % knowledge to 100
:11:05. > :11:11.% skills. It is where you draw the boundary between the two and that
:11:11. > :11:19.is an ever-changing issue. But the thing that I think you have to
:11:19. > :11:23.confront is that technology, the situations that employers require
:11:23. > :11:26.people... The world that teenagers are familiar with has changed very
:11:26. > :11:31.rapidly in the last five to ten years and it changes to an
:11:31. > :11:35.operational skills best method. Social media, Twitter, is less than
:11:35. > :11:39.five years old. Social media has changed things enormously. I am not
:11:40. > :11:43.suggesting that social media is the basis for education but that if
:11:43. > :11:46.education is completely divorced from the rapidly changing skills
:11:46. > :11:50.base of learning to function in society, you need to be careful
:11:50. > :11:57.about that, because that has the capacity to alienate people. The
:11:57. > :12:02.world of the 1970s and 1980s is a world...
:12:02. > :12:07.I am not sure that is not a separate point. I did not think
:12:07. > :12:12.anyone would argue against making youngsters able to use new
:12:12. > :12:18.technology. The argument is more about teaching things, each subject,
:12:18. > :12:21.as if it was a narrow, said... Let me tackle another comment. You said
:12:21. > :12:29.that no longer is it assumed you can become a better person by
:12:29. > :12:32.studying Shakespeare, or the minutiae of genetics. You have
:12:32. > :12:36.tried to connect Airfix with the way things should be taught. What
:12:36. > :12:39.did you mean by saying that assumption has gone? The dominant
:12:39. > :12:43.tradition in Scottish intellectual life was that through the internet
:12:43. > :12:46.we can become better people. The best way of addressing ethical
:12:46. > :12:51.questions is through at an intellectual, rational approach.
:12:51. > :12:56.There are other ways of looking at ethics, of course. But that is a
:12:57. > :13:00.change. Some people regret the change. You clearly regretted?
:13:00. > :13:03.because I think that the best approach, the best way of becoming
:13:03. > :13:07.a better person, is by understanding through our
:13:07. > :13:12.intellects had to become a better person and that is what, in the
:13:12. > :13:16.past, Scottish education has aspired to do. I think what is
:13:16. > :13:20.important is that contend, disciplinary content, is it sport -
:13:21. > :13:25.- important, extremely valuable, part of a thoroughgoing education
:13:25. > :13:30.and education is also about bringing out what the word means,
:13:30. > :13:33.the Latin root of the word is bringing out what is there in the
:13:33. > :13:38.learner, and the environment in which the learner is functioning is
:13:38. > :13:42.a rapidly changing environment and all knowledge based education, I am
:13:42. > :13:46.a great support of knowledge-based education, but it is weighted for
:13:46. > :13:52.the balance. All knowledge based education needs to be conscious of
:13:52. > :13:57.what it is to get the learner to respond... Do you think it is just
:13:57. > :14:05.a prejudiced that sometimes you come across young people who, for
:14:05. > :14:12.example, Shakespeare is a module rather than, oh my God, literature
:14:12. > :14:16.could change my life. Is that just a prejudice? Because I think that
:14:16. > :14:20.is... You were probably disagree but that is kind of what Lindsay
:14:20. > :14:23.Paterson is trying to get to. study of literature and the arts
:14:23. > :14:26.and social sciences, the sciences, and medicine and veterinary
:14:26. > :14:33.medicine and so on, they are changing people's lives all the
:14:33. > :14:39.time. In different ways. And if you listen to debates about education
:14:39. > :14:43.or read about education in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, what employers
:14:43. > :14:47.want and the needs of society, there is a debate going on the
:14:47. > :14:53.whole time. Nobody who educates thinks they are living in a golden
:14:53. > :14:56.age. All right. Lindsay Paterson, I am just trying to make this little
:14:56. > :15:00.more practical. If there were a change to the examinations that you
:15:00. > :15:06.would like to see, in order to bring out what you have been
:15:06. > :15:11.talking about, briefly, what would it be? Let's make the education
:15:11. > :15:17.system more innovative. What has been proposed is reviving the
:15:17. > :15:20.traditional exam system. If we do believe in linking different
:15:20. > :15:27.subjects together, let's do that properly, because it is not being
:15:27. > :15:34.proposed at the moment. Classes. Tomorrow's front pages. The
:15:34. > :15:40.Scotsman, long waits for Accident and Emergency. And there is a
:15:40. > :15:45.picture of the opening of the Edinburgh festival. Scottish Daily
:15:45. > :15:52.Mail, BBC boss, do not be patriotic about Team GB. This is about a