A year after their St Andrew’s Day petition to the Scottish Parliament, members of the Literature Forum for Scotland have outlined what they want to see embedded in the Scottish Executive’s Culture Bill.
They want all Scots to:
* be introduced to an understanding of the history, literature, languages and arts of Scotland in their national and international contexts;
* experience and develop appropriate skills in appreciation and expression of creative language, music, movement and visual design.
The forum has promised to support all statutory bodies, including the Curriculum for Excellence board, in the delivery of these objectives. It has formed a new education task group, chaired by Donald Smith, director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and it wants an advisory group for Scottish Culture Across the Curriculum to be established within the Curriculum for Excellence process.
Finally, it is calling for the setting up of a strong literature division within Creative Scotland (the new cultural development agency linking the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen), to be called Literature Scotland. This would offer a one-stop shop for information and promotion, and be staffed by specialists in education and publishing, literature, readership development and translation.
