06/12/2016 Scotland 2016

Scotland's schools hit a 15-year low, recording

their worst ever performance in an international survey.

Scotland's Education Secretary admits the country's education

rankings make "uncomfortable reading".

So why have our standards slipped so far?

And it's been described as Scotland's most

But will it take more than Government intervention

The Scottish Education Secretary John Swinney had no choice

but to admit the figures make "uncomfortable reading".

A survey by the Programme For International Student Assessment

found that performance in the three core subjects of maths, reading

And it's led Mr Swinney to call for a "radical reform"

The Programme for International Student Assessment run by the OECD

every two years assesses the skills of 15-year-olds in 72 countries in

reading, maths and science. The results of the most recent

assessment undertaken two years ago on March 2015 were published this

morning. The figures for Scotland do not make comfortable reading. But

they do reinforce the need for reforms to our school system that

are now underway. While the shoulder Scottish scorers as someone to the

OECD average in all areas tested, be sure that compared to 2012 hour

performance and signed in reading has fallen. In science and maths we

are now below the levels at which we performed in 2006 and more countries

have outperformed Scotland and all three areas than at any time since

Pisa began. The results show that closing the poverty attainment gap

is a complex challenge which is not unique to Scotland. The welcome

improvements in the performance of young people from deprived

backgrounds that we saw in the previous results between 2009 and

2012 have been maintained. However, there is still a gap between pupils

between the beast and most disadvantaged backgrounds, around

three years the mugwort of schooling according to the OECD. In its report

published this time last year, it said that the Curriculum for

Excellence was an important reform and was the right approach for

Scotland. The OECD said that we had got the design right but that we

needed to take further steps to secure the benefits of this new

approach in all parts of the country. The Government's plans for

reform were set out in the delivery plan, delivering excellence and

equality in education, published in the month of June following the

national education summit. This programme is bold, ambitious and

imparts controversial. But we must be clear, reform is required. This

data reinforces the case for radical change that the government is

determined to pursue. Not only are now below the OECD average in the

three measurements when we were above and beyond 2006, but the most

recent trends in the last set of Pisa result in 2012 tell us that

Scotland is actually heading backwards in two measurements. With

the Cabinet Secretary access the statistics published today are a

damning indictment of the SNP's education policies in the schools

and rookie accept the equality question, the effect of delivery of

the curriculum of excellence? Women has the OECD to consider the

approach to the implementation of CSE and its effect on Scottish

education, I have put on make-up their view and it was that the

Curriculum for Excellence was the correct reform to be undertaken.

Well, joining me now to discuss the school performance

figures released today is Professor Lindsay Paterson

Good evening to you, Professor. Thank you for joining us. We heard

that the numbers have fallen since the year 2000, since devilish in

essentially. We will come to the Curriculum for Excellence any

moment, but what has changed in terms of the structure of Scottish

education in that time? -- since devilish in. One of the striking

things about Scotland is that very little has changed in its structure

converted to England. The main thing that this change in Scotland is the

curriculum and we will come onto that any minute. Essentially,

Scotland a decade and a half ago thought that it structure was fine,

that there was nothing fundamental it had to change about the kinds of

schools we have, the ways in which people move between schools from

primary to secondary, for example, or indeed, by and large, the

examinations etc. There have been reform but not fundamental change as

there has been in other countries. Looking at the curriculum, the

introduction for the Curriculum for Excellence, that was a major change,

John Swinney has said that the OECD has said that is the right

curriculum for Scotland, is that universally agreed? The Cabinet

Secretary was being selective in his quotation from that report. The OECD

said that according to the Aussie consensus in Scotland it was the

correct change but crucially they also said that the Scottish

Government had not produced the data that would allow an objective

evaluation for Curriculum for Excellence. The OECD said that

repeatedly in the report, the data had simply not been collected that

would allow a proper evaluation in terms of Scottish detail. What we

have now today is the closest we will ever get to an evaluation of

this Curriculum for Excellence, we had put up before it was introduced

and we have two waves of data after 2012 but above all the data from

2015. In every respect, Scottish education is declining according to

these measurements. Other things have changed, degrading thing

that has changed in Scotland and not changed in England, where there has

been no such decline, as the Curriculum for Excellence. So if

that is not the explanation for the decline, the onus is on the

government to explain what is the explanation for the decline. I

cannot think of one. How do we make an assessment of its success? The

final exam results, the numbers of children going to university? It

surely has to be beyond this test that only looks at 15-year-olds. The

strength of the Pisa test is that it is than to the high standards and

has been improved since it was first introduced. It is a gold standard.

The great advantage of it is that it is done on a comparable basis for

many countries. The problem relying only on Scottish exams is that there

is the fear that the standard of exams have been changing in response

to the changes to the curriculum and that other changes and going on that

might possibly have meant that what we are expecting our students to

them in school is actually beginning and when they have an objective

external assessment like these Pisa tests which show that Scottish team

according to the same test in other countries is declining, then we have

to face up to the possibility that we are not asking enough of our

15-year-olds, we should be challenging them more as they do in

other countries and in other parts of the UK. One of the ideas for the

Curriculum for Excellence was this more modern, holistic approach,

teaching children to think for themselves rather than being

prescriptive, feeding them information that they then

essentially just regurgitate. If that feeling to happen? Clearly,

according to these tests. The Curriculum for Excellence said that

the things that would be teaching children are about real life skills

as opposed to apparently allegedly arid academic knowledge. The whole

point of the Pisa study is that it assesses real-life skills. It is

clear that the real life skills of Scottish children are not doing

particularly well. So perhaps in fact Curriculum for Excellence has

the whole thing wrong. Perhaps the best way to prepare children for

real life is to teach them quite traditional academic skills, ways of

thinking, concepts that the traditional subjects that human

beings have evolved over the centuries, perhaps that is the way

to engage in real life, not a Rabo Mickey Mouse approach to cross

curricular themes and other subjects that are beside the point at that

age. Some have criticised it saying that teachers are unclear in the

roll in all of this is and what they should actually be teaching

children. There was the agreement 15 years ago that was meant to

revolutionise teaching and improve their conditions, raised their pay

and give them will clash in time. Where do you think teaching is

currently sitting within this whole big debate and this effort to raise

attainment? Teachers are the only way forward, you cannot change the

system without working closely with teachers and the Scottish Government

appreciates that and John Swinney has said that identity and that is

commendable. The problem with Curriculum for Excellence is that it

claimed to devolve responsibility for the curriculum to individual

teachers in schools. Primary school teachers cannot be expected to

reinvent the curriculum for themselves. Understandably they felt

adrift as though they were not getting adequate help and support

from the Centre for curriculum advisory bodies, for example. That

is beginning to change but only very slowly and in the meantime teachers

I think still feel that the whole thing has been imposed upon them and

that expectations of teachers have got too unreasonable length and at

the same time, they are being held responsible for the failures of

children when they do not attain as highly as they should. There are

regional variations as well, is there any solution do you think in

trying to have a central answer to some of these issues, rather than

leaving local authorities to sort these problems are themselves?

Indeed. The reason for standardisation across the country

is about Equal Opportunities Committee we want children to have

access to the same curriculum, the same kind of quality of teaching and

exams in one part of Scotland than in another part of Scotland. Two

types of curriculum and could risk dividing Scotland and creating

better opportunities in one place than in another. We have to be

careful about going too far down the road of decentralisation.

Decentralisation in interpreting standard guidelines but these

guidelines have to be standard for the system as a whole for the system

to be fair. Professor Lindsay Paterson, thank you very much for

joining us. MSPs learnt a new piece

of jargon today. It means an environment that makes

it easy to put on weight. And, it seems,

Scotland is obesogenic. So one witness told

the Health Committee at Holyrood that we're facing a "public health

crisis" because we eat too much We'll hear some medical expertise

on the issue in a moment. It is the season to be jolly. Time

to eat, drink and be merry, celebrated at Christmas markets

around the country, like this one in Glasgow. But today the Health

Committee at Holyrood Howard obesity described as the most pressing

public issue of our time. In 2015, more than a quarter of Scots are

categorised as obese, although not many as big as this chap. In the

same year, 65% of us were over weight. Between 1998 and now, the

proportion of children overweight or obese has fluctuated between 20% and

33% and MSPs on the Health Committee heard today that obesity is the

biggest cause of preventable cancers after smoking. Over the next 20

years across the UK they heard obesity could be responsible for

700,000 preventable cancers. The changes that we see, particularly in

smoking, did not happen because people decided not to smoke, they

happen because we change the environment and the opportunities

that people had to make healthier choices. At the moment, the

unhealthy choice is the easy choice, there is a bit of jargon that we

use, we talk about obesogenic. An environment where it makes it easy

to overturn some calories and take too little physical exercise. We

need to turn that on its head. In terms of regulation, I think there

are tough choices, it is not easy to find a regulatory measurements to

increase activity but it could be around that and there are tough

political decisions such as restricting car access to town

centres, pedestrianisation, increasing car parking charges,

difficult and unpopular decisions to make. If we had a 1% drop in obesity

each year we would have far fewer cases of cancer and we know that

could save around ?40 million to the NHS. So, if Scotland facing an

obesity crisis? Absolutely, the scale of the problem that we face in

Scotland is significant and we need to redouble our efforts in which we

try and tackle that, not just for the Q and is now in terms of the

health benefits but also in the preventative sense that it allows us

to stop the impact it is having on our health service and on public

services in general. Absolutely, there is a significant problem which

Scotland has to face. Back at Glasgow's Christmas market, there is

food and drink everywhere and people who know what we ought to be doing,

but it is not always easy. I am on a diet, cheese, I have given it up. I

have lost weight. I was 30 stone and I was worried about my weight. I do

try but it is not easy living in Scotland, especially with the

weather, I think that has a lot to do with it. Lots of stodgy food. I

tried to watch what I eat as much as I can but I quite enjoyed eating

like everyone else. It is trying to pick a more healthy options. I am

out walking with my grandson, that is increasing my exercise, it is

good for me. Scotland has made tough decisions about smoking policy and

alcohol pricing but can politicians really get this eating less and

exercising more? Well, earlier this evening,

I spoke to Naveed Sattar who's Professor of Metabolic Medicine

at the University of Glasgow. Can Government actually change our

lifestyle habits? Yes, they can. The way the

Government interacts with the food industry and provides taxation on

foods, a debatable topic, can lead us to eat healthier.

Unhealthy foods would be more expensive which would subsidise

healthy foods. So people are directed to eating healthy foods.

That is a huge ask because the food industry is not easy to interact

with and legislation is something that meets lots of opposition. That

is really the holy Grail. Unless we change our food policy and make

healthy foods easier and cheaper, I do not see us making a big dent in

the beastie statistics. Why is it so slow? The sugar soft

drinks levy proposed has actually forced soft drinks companies to act

before it has come to legislation, could the same be done for food high

in fat and salt? Yes, but it is not as easy. Fact is

in many different foods. How do you make those decisions, what Rawls do

you make certain foods to be more expensive? The reality is it has to

be some whether it is a total calorie count and if they are above

a certain level they are given a higher tax or cost, but it can be

done. It will be difficult, there is no easy fix. One of the easiest ways

to make the difference is big labels showing total calorie content.

People can understand what they are putting in their mouths. For

example, if they think, 500 calories for a drink, maybe I should just

have a cup of tea and a banana at 90 calories. Even that is difficult.

Legislation probably prohibits putting total calorie content on

many foods. We all have an individual

responsibility, some of us have parental responsibilities to look at

what we are eating and exercise. What is going wrong? The Government

came up with a plan to tackle obesity six years ago, with two

thirds of Scottish adults overweight and almost a third classed as obese.

Where are we going wrong? The million-dollar question. The reality

is most causes of obesity is the eating calories rather than less

activity. Actually, it is difficult for people

to regulate weight when there is an abundance of calories. It is easy to

walk around the street and find rich, dense calories, and be seduced

to taking a big cake not knowing how many calories it is. Easy to have a

pack of crisps at night. Easy to have a bacon sandwich and not

realise it is full of lots of saturated fat.

There are too many calories in society. Many people of most of us

are obese. We find it difficult not to resist the temptation because

they are also very cheap. Is the perception of our own bodies

changing? Is it more acceptable to be overweight?

It probably is because more people in society are overweight. It

doesn't feel so much different. But I have seen many patients in my

clinic who are overweight, putting on weight at a rapid level and are

not happy. They would rather be lighter. Being lighted means they

can be more active, they are usually happier with their self body image,

and that makes for a better workforce.

We might say being overweight is not necessarily a big issue, it probably

is, many would rather not be overweight. If we as a nation can

help them make better health choices easier, if doctors can step up to

the mark in the way we speak to our patients about lifestyle.

And the reasons why people over eat, there are psychological complexities

to our relationship with food, are we looking enough at that, our

people being referred for help? I wouldn't say problem eating, there

is a simple issue, what you provide in front of you on the table, it has

to be better. In Scotland, if you go down many streets, there is an

abundance of fast food places, cheap calories. That is where the battle

has to be tackled. Anything else is a distraction. Yes, education of

kids, about cooking is important. Unless we change our food culture

and what is available, we were tackled this in any great way.

With me now to talk some more about today's news,

I'm joined by the editor of The Big Issue, Paul McNamee.

And the journalist and former MSP Dorothy Grace Elder.

Good evening to you both. We start with the beastie discussed today

before a Holyrood committee, Aileen Campbell warned this follows

generations of over eating and under activity.

This is what she had to say. Our response to the beastie cannot rely

on if few projects. This is about reshaping the environment to make a

healthier choice, a change to our ways.

What do you think the problem is? Why are none of the messages so far

getting through? Good luck with that, people have

been trying it for almost 20 years. The Government has spent tens of

millions on better education on health. And it hasn't worked. People

do not like to be elected to especially by governments.

What you need I think is to get right to the crux of the matter

which is cutting fat and sugar in the manufacturing of many types of

food. We know sugar is slipped into things. There is no clamp-down on

that. That is what is most needed. You would have to run from here to

Aberdeen to burn off enough calories regularly for it to work.

The professor made the point it is about what we are eating primarily.

Paul, is it the job of Government to step in and force companies to put

less fat, salt and sugar in? Ultimately, companies are private

corporations and they will make a decision based on where they feel

there is demand and to serve their shareholders. We have such a weird

relationship with food in this country. The biggest show in the

whole of Britain is about getting flour and sugar and putting it

together and stuffing your face and celebrating that. As long as that is

the case, and also poverty plays a part. Cheap, processed food is

available. It is much more readily available than good healthy

vegetables. That is where people will turn. It does feel as though it

is hectoring. If you don't have a lot of money you will find the

cheapest you can get to meet the needs of your family. That has to be

looked at. Exercise is something to do with it. That lets people off the

hook saying it doesn't. It starts early. There is the school in

Stirling with the run a mile a day for the pupils. When that becomes an

institutionalised movement, you begin to feel about fitness and your

body slightly differently, your mind works better, in relation with food

will change. These things have to be looked at

together. So long as something like a cough is

tiptop and Woody does it, where are you going?

I can't stand they cough. How do we celebrate our attitude to food? And

blaming the weather and not being active enough.

Every other television programme is about food, cooking. Of course, they

are ladling in cream, sugar and butter because it tastes good.

Governments, Westminster in this case, because they acted in wartime,

you are not getting enough sugar because we have had too many ships

sunk, you are not getting enough flour, rationing. Of course

governments can act. They are letting manufacturers get away with

forcing a lot of people to eat trash. As you rightly say, people

pick up what is cheapest, at the time.

On the topic of Government, the Brexit case at the Supreme Court, an

important case, how easy do you think this is the people to follow?

It is ludicrously hard. But then that was expected. And everything

has to be second-hand because like a lot of people, I started watching

yesterday, listening to the arguments, it was so detailed and so

dense that I was getting lost. It is hard to get to. I think the

basic idea, does the Government have the right to act without asking MPs

Tim make this decision, keep this in mind, this is what it is all about.

Be prepared for this long, arcane dance that will get us to January.

We will hear tomorrow's, Scotland's turn, that Holyrood should be

consulted, when the emotion that might go?

Of course it must be consulted. I don't know if we'll be. Theresa May

saying I want a red, white and blue Brexit. In Scotland, a lot of people

want you might take a tartan remain. We want remain. That is not being

processed. We are being cut out entirely. So is Northern Ireland. We

are reliant on the court to make a decision for us.

You can argue parts of London -- parts of England are, London,

Manchester. There are interesting cost usual

questions on the role of Scotland. The devolved areas in Britain were

set up through an act of Polmont and that is what this is about, should

there be an act of Parliament? So, if there is a win here for the

opposition to the Government, then where does that leave the devolved

powers and what they can do and influence?

It is fascinating and really difficult.

It is cutting out democracy, though. That is why there is Brexit. This is

the very worst situation we have had the decades.

But that was the choice of the people.

The majority. Let us quickly move on to the other big story, education,

Scotland has slipped down the international league table, Dorothy,

a surprise? Sort of. We have had too little

stability in education in Scotland for years. We have had four

different Education secretaries, John Swinney is the fourth, and

fortunately for him. He only got into the job about six months ago.

And we have had nine years before that. I think actually it was the

Labour - Lib Dem coalition which started with this curriculum for

excellence. The SNP has had a long time nevertheless to get things

right. John Swinney was challenged today by umpteen people about the

actual mess behind the scenes, which is a 20,000 sheets of paper

instructions or guidance for poor teachers, that the teachers do not

understand, and John Swinney admitted that, the teachers can't

navigate it. What is the solution as they try

to... Headteachers power and look to do

the simple things right. Keep school libraries open. If kids are falling

down on reading, provide a place for them to do it. Ultimately, stop

overburdening teachers with the curriculum for excellence, the paper

trail, it is so unnecessary. More classroom time.

I'm back again tomorrow night, usual time.