SCOTLAND’S schools’ quango should be split up to prevent a repeat of the red tape crisis which has engulfed teachers, an MSP has warned.
Tavish Scott, a Liberal Democrat who sits on Holyrood’s education committee, said the creation of Education Scotland in 2011 from the merger of separate inspection and curriculum bodies should be reversed.
His comments come after the body was asked by Education Secretary John Swinney to produce better guidance for schools to clear up confusion over priorities under the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) reforms.
Writing in The Herald, Mr Scott said: “On teacher workload, Education Scotland said there were inconsistencies in guidance for teachers, variations in the interpretation of that guidance, and in some cases, conflicting opinions between schools in the same local authority.
“And whose responsibility is that? Local councils to some extent, but the biggest generator of paperwork was Education Scotland itself.
“A survey of local education authorities was issued by the schools inspectorate, but astonishingly it made observations about the bureaucracy imposed on councils and schools by none other than Education Scotland. They are the same.
“The body responsible for inspecting schools and education authorities cannot be the same as the one responsible for creating teacher bureaucracy in the first place and John Swinney should split up the functions of his quango.”
Teaching unions also expressed concerns over the dual roles of Education Scotland, which was founded in 2011 by former SNP Education Secretary Michael Russell following a merger of HM Inspectorate of Education, which inspects schools, and Learning and Teaching Scotland, which develops classroom materials and provides school support.
Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA), said: “The role of Education Scotland needs to be be reviewed to see whether it it fit for purpose in the future.
“It may be the twin roles need to be looked at, but our view is that there are much more fundamental issues about how the various functions are working.
“Our members are concerned Education Scotland is divorced from the realities of what is happening in schools and that staff should be in classrooms rather than organising training sessions or writing reports.”
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland added: “It is clear the Scottish Government intends to take a wide-ranging look at many aspects of Scottish education and the operation of agencies such as Education Scotland will obviously be included.
“While Education Scotland has an important role to play in supporting learning and teaching, the overly bureaucratic nature of much of its policy has contributed to the red-tape and form filling that blights the working lives of teachers.
“The merger was seen as a curious combination to many within education at the time and some level of reform is likely to be required in future.”
The twin roles of inspection and curriculum development were deliberately kept separate by former Scottish Labour education minister Jack McConnell in 2001 to prevent undue influence by HMIE on what was being taught.
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