The Scottish Executive is encouraging a parallel debate. Why should this be? The rationale stated is that the Executive as the responsible body for education policy will be “encouraging people to discuss a wide range of issues which are important to a long-term strategy for education”.

The rationale for the education, culture and sport committee is that it wishes to build on this discussion “by provoking a debate in more depth on key issues about the future of education”. The committee goes further in indicating that “it wants to develop its practical vision for Scottish education, to inform its scrutiny of all education issues in future and to bring into the public domain the wide range of positive thinking about education that exists in Scotland”.

My understanding is that the committee and Executive will be working in parallel to stimulate debate on education in all groups with an interest. So far so good, but I think it is important to be clear about this situation. This isn’t really about Scottish education - it’s essentially about school education.

In a sense, this is fair enough. After all, the enterprise and lifelong learning committee has been having its debate on lifelong learning over the past year. In fact the interim report has already been published and the final report will be published by June.

Perhaps by now you are becoming slightly puzzled by these enquiries from different committees and involving different departments of the Executive. My problem is with the fact that there is a separation at all between education and lifelong learning. Should we not be adopting a holistic approach rather than these false dichotomies?

Those who are more politically cynical than myself might view the timing of the launch by the Executive of its debate as, at best, upstaging and at worst submerging the lifelong learning committee. There is the danger of even greater difference between the agenda for “education” and the agenda for “lifelong learning” if the two sets of enquiries steer in different directions.

But even if this doesn’t happen there is a problem if the Executive continues to see schools, further education colleges and higher education institutions as separate domains. And I am sure whatever else happens, the debate on school education will inevitably receive much more publicity. It was ever thus.

However, the interim report is with us now. It has been described by the Association of Scottish Colleges as being more interim than expected. It is firm in its treatment of student entitlement but for the other issues - employer engagement, the role of institutions, responsibility for delivery and the role of intermediary bodies - there is no coherent strategy. Indeed the suggestion from the committee is that a new advisory council should take on responsibility for developing national strategy.

So we await the final report. Meanwhile there is all to play for and, at a recent ASC meeting which discussed the report, there was reasonable optimism. Interestingly, in a recent discussion with a member of Scottish Enterprise they , too, were optimistic about it.

So who knows. I am sure all parties in the discussion will redouble their efforts before the final report. Meanwhile we have a debate to join.

Norman Williamson is principal of Coatbridge College and a member of the Educational Institute of Scotland.