Sweeping audit of controversial curriculum launched
● Education Secretary puts faith in CFE but says improvement required
A major audit of Scotland’s under-fire school curriculum has been launched by John Swinney, despite the education secretary insisting it is still “the right approach” for Scottish education.
Mr Swinney yesterday announced a sweeping review of Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) – the syllabus taught to Scottish children throughout their school years – after demands by opposition parties in the wake of a series of reports which suggested there was a decline in high school subject choice, increased multi-level teaching in classrooms and a pattern of declining attainment.
However he said he believed the curriculum was delivering “strong results” for pupils, with literacy improving across “almost every level”. He said the “same is true for numeracy”, and that the attainment gap between the poorest and wealthiest pupils was closing. Further, he said almost 30 per cent of children were now achieving five Higher passes and the percent of students at least a National 5 qualification had increased from 71 per cent in 2007 to 85 per cent.
Yet, international PISA results recently showed Scotland falling down the rankings on maths and science, although literacy improved.
Scottish Government analysis published last week also showed a decline in the exam performance of school pupils, with the number of students achieving passes in core Higher subjects dropping significantly last year, in some cases by as much as 10 per cent.
Today it was also revealed in the largest literacy study ever conducted in the UK and Ireland, that Scottish pupils no longer have the best level of reading comprehension among the home nations. The Dundee University report showed that Scottish youngsters have slipped behind Northern Ireland and have come joint second with England.
Mr Swinney said he was not claiming “everything is wonderful”, and that the audit, which will take a year to complete, will consider the design, depth and breadth of the curriculum, whether it should be more or less flexible in how it is applied.
He said: “It is vital to recognise that, despite calls for such a review in Parliament, there was cross-party support for the development of Curriculum for Excellence, and there continues to be cross-party support. We have made a series of reforms… reforms that the evidence is telling us are starting to work. Every education system must always be open to make further improvements.”