Axe for footie hate law would be ‘historic’
BY EDUCATION SECRETARY JOHN SWINNEY
SCRAPPING a law aimed at tackling sectarian behaviour at football would be a “historic moment for devolution”, an MSP has said.
Opposition parties have united behind a bid by Labour’s James Kelly to repeal the controversial Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act. Marking the lodging of his Member’s Bill at the Scottish Parliament, Kelly said the SNP had treated Holyrood with “contempt”.
The Act came into force in 2012 but did not have the support of other parties.
But after the Nats lost their majority at the 2016 Holyrood election, Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MSPs backed a motion calling for its repeal.
Kelly said: “Repealing the SNP Football Act will be a historic and important moment for devolution.
“The law sums up how arrogant the SNP have become in Government – and the contempt ministers have for Parliament.
“Lawyers, academics, football fans and every opposition party opposed the law as it made its way through Parliament.”
Tory MSP Oliver Mundell added: “We voted against this when it was introduced and will do so again when it comes to Parliament in future.”
The first vote on Kelly’s Bill is likely to happen before the end of the year.
We need to work with everyone involved and we will continue to listen to what they have to say
SCOTLAND’S education system already has many strengths. More of our young people are getting excellent exam results and going on to a job, training or more education. But recent international rankings and literacy scores show we need to do more to raise attainment for all and close the poverty-related attainment gap. That is why I believe we need to make changes to the way education is run in Scotland, giving much more flexibility and control to our schools. A simple, powerful idea is driving these changes – we are putting more power and money in the hands of schools and teachers. It means decisions about learning being made by the people who know young people best – their parents, teachers, school and pupils themselves. So we are giving schools the freedom to take decisions that will make a real difference to children’s lives.
International evidence shows that this approach works. And I have seen it for myself with the additional money from Pupil Equity Funding that the Scottish Government is giving directly to schools to close the attainment gap.
Teachers and headteachers will lead the changes in our classrooms. They are the ones with the right knowledge to make a difference.
Headteachers will choose their staff and how those staff are managed. Schools will have control over curriculum content, to make it suitable for their local needs.
Schools will also have greater control over more of their finances. The Scottish Government have launched a formal consultation on the best way of doing this, and I would urge everyone to have a say before it closes on October 13.
We know that involving parents in their child’s education makes a big difference to how well they go on to do, which is why we want parents and guardians to have a stronger voice.
We will do this by improving the way parent councils work to make sure parents can properly participate in decision making, and giving every school access to a home-to-school link worker to support parents and families.
Your children will also be involved in those decisions which make a difference to their own future. Young people should have
more chances to participate and have their voices heard.
Schools will lead but they must have the right support in place to ensure they can succeed.
That is why we are putting in place a strong support structure, with three parts.
The first focuses on teachers. Teaching is a hugely rewarding career and we want to attract more people into the profession.
We will continue to reform teacher education to make sure new teachers have the skills they need, no matter where in the country they are, particularly in key areas like literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing.
This means creating new routes for people who want to become teachers, while maintaining the high standards we insist on in our classrooms.
All new courses must be developed in partnership with universities and accredited by the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
Importantly, we are putting in place support for existing teachers too.
We know they are dedicated and passionate but have been struggling with workloads and too much paperwork. I have already taken steps to sort that out and free up teachers to teach.
And we know teachers have been frustrated with too few chances to progress in their career, so we will work with the profession to help them build on their skills.
The second step is how we will support improvement in our education system. We know teachers want to constantly improve and do better for our children.
To help them do that, we will set up Regional Improvement Collaboratives so that schools can pool resources and learn from each other about what works and what doesn’t.
Schools will get help delivering their improvement plans from dedicated teams made up of professionals from Education Scotland, councils and others.
Some local areas have already embraced this approach and are seeing the benefit, and we will work with councils to expand this work across the country.
The third aspect is making sure local councils support their area’s schooling.
Councils will be responsible for important education support services, including the number and catchment areas of schools, recruiting headteachers, and HR and other support services.
We are updating the role of Education Scotland to ensure improvements are consistent – whether the school is in the Western Isles or Edinburgh.
We are also consulting on setting up an Education Workforce Council for Scotland, which would mean not just