A national consultation on the future of Scottish education was launched last week, inviting “all who have an interest” to take part and giving them an eight-week window in which to do so.

The consultation is part of the work of Professor Ken Muir in response to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) review of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), published in June. Professor Muir has been charged with taking forward several key pieces of work that came out of the report, including: the replacement of the Scottish Qualifications Authority; creating a new specialist agency responsible for curriculum and assessment; and the removal of inspection from the remit of Education Scotland.

The consultation, however, is wider than that. It asks whether respondents think that a new curriculum and assessment agency “will help address the misalignment of curriculum and assessment as outlined in the OECD report” and what the advantages and disadvantages might be, but it also asks what should be “retained and/or changed” in CfE and for “any ideas” to bring about a broader variety of qualifications in the curriculum in secondary schools.

These are big questions and, in his introduction, Muir encourages participants “to take the opportunity to respond to the open-ended questions that seek your ideas for improving outcomes for all learners”.

Ultimately, though, how is this information going to be used?

It seems hard to believe that it can be properly considered by Muir, given the tight timescale he is working to. Teachers have also complained about having enough time to participate. The consultation will close on 26 November, and in mid-January - not even two months later - Muir is due to put his report in the hands of education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville.

Changes to senior secondary school education

The OECD review of CfE suggested that the Republic of Ireland’s National Council for Curriculum and Assessment review of upper-secondary education “could serve
as inspiration” for Scotland, given that one of the OECD’s key criticisms was that, while the vision of CfE was being realised in lower secondary and “especially in primary schools”, there was “a gap … in terms of the overall curriculum goals and the qualifications students prepare for during the senior phase”, where the emphasis was on preparing for exams.

In Ireland, the review of the curriculum and assessment that senior students experience has been ongoing since 2016, and now - five years later - the advisory report is with the minister for education “for consideration and response”.

In Ireland, the review process started in 2016-17, identifying the key themes for exploration and establishing the method for conducting the review.

In 2018-19, the review worked with 41 schools “to gather, analyse and discuss teacher, student and parent perspectives on senior cycle education”. It had a
focus on the purpose of senior cycle education and on “pathways, programmes and flexibility”.

Feedback from schools was analysed and presented at national seminars for further discussion, as well as being documented in reports.

Then, in phase three, a public consultation took place, which ran over four months in 2019; only after that did the aforementioned advisory report appear.

In comparison, the Scottish attempt to address concerns about whether the senior phase is working feels rushed and ill-thought-through.

It smacks of that other criticism in the OECD review, about the “centrality of education in the political debate” resulting “in a reactive and oftentimes political approach, which is not the most efficient way to address issues with CfE”.

Is the OECD review itself sparking exactly the kind of “reactive” response that it said was bad for Scottish education?

Professor Muir, speaking at the Scottish Learning Festival in September, was at pains to stress that his piece of work is just a “starting point”, and that, while he is due to submit his report to the Scottish government in January, it is not “about having everything done by early 2022” and his work is part of a “longer-term programme of educational reform”.

But the clarity of the Irish approach makes our own look hasty and ill-defined.

The Scottish government needs to have the guts to do this properly, despite the political pressure. It needs to take its time - and be clear about where it is going, and when it wants to get there.

Faith and confidence in qualifications and assessment are fragile. Big mistakes
have been made with the senior phase before - the OECD, for example, says
that, Advanced Higher aside, qualifications introduced from 2013-14 still don’t cut
the mustard.

Scotland can’t afford to get it wrong again.

Emma Seith is a reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article orginally appeared in the 8 October 2021 issue, under the headline ‘We can’t afford to rush this revolution of senior secondary education’