SCOTLAND'S newest pro-independence party has opposed controversial plans for national testing for primary pupils.
The left-wing group Rise, a grassroots anti-austerity movement, said the Scottish Government should trust teachers rather than imposing new tests.
The call comes after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced all pupils would sit standardised national tests in literacy and numeracy by 2017.
Pupils will be tested three times in primary school and again in the third year of secondary as part of a drive to improve standards.
In the wake of the announcement executive members of the Educational Institute of Scotland teaching union re-affirmed their opposition to national testing and the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association said it could take industrial action over the plans.
The report by Rise said the introduction of standardised testing was likely to lead to "a number of damaging unintended consequences" for Scottish education, including reducing the country's ability to address educational inequality.
The report said countries with similar approaches, such as Australia, had experienced "significant negative effects" on their education system and argued that attempts to tackle inequality depended on teachers having "time and space" to employ their professional judgement.
A party spokesman said: "This report adds significant weight to the increasing opposition to the Scottish Government’s plans for a system of national standardised testing.
"It finds that testing is not supported by international evidence, is incompatible with Curriculum for Excellence and will almost certainly result in a range of damaging unintended consequences such as school league tables and the further entrenchment of educational inequality in Scotland.
"Despite the progressive language and good intentions, these proposals are in reality a throwback to the rejected Thatcherite education policies of the 1990s - policies which failed then and will fail now."
However, the Scottish Government said the new National Improvement Framework, which is currently being devised, would look at a range of evidence on children’s progress including testing.
A spokeswoman said recently: "This new system will help reduce the burden of assessment on teachers and children, building on best practice and replacing the wide variety of approaches taken by local authorities with a new streamlined, consistent one. This is not a return to the national testing of old."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel