The biggest difference a Scottish parliament will make to education is in the way it formulates policy, Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Moray House Institute, told the conference.
Professor Paterson believes that legislative consultation will involve a range of groups and individuals. “This would contrast with the present situation where legislation emerges almost ready-made from the civil service or from political parties,” he writes in a report issued by the Educational Institute of Scotland.
Election by proportional representation would ensure no one party dominated and the parliament was likely to have a left of centre bias.
