The national education brief is either very simple or the incumbents must be extremely clever if they can pick it up in a few months before migrating to a more prestigious portfolio.

It is not only the Labour Government which has regarded Scottish education as a helipad for flights to higher ministerial altitudes. The Thatcher and Major years produced a rapid relay of favoured sons carrying this red-hot baton for short periods of time, including Malcolm Rifkind, Ian Lang and James Douglas-Hamilton. Finally, when everybody had been given a wee shot on the pedagogical pogo stick, the last teacher before Jack McConnell to occupy the office, Raymond Robertson, prompted the biblical accolade “He is not dead but sleepeth”.

At the Catholic heads’ school camp last May, I pointed out to Mr McConnell, the keynote speaker, that we had experienced four ministers in four years and that I looked forward to welcoming him back next spring in a more elevated capacity. Delegates laughed heartily and the astute politician side-stepped the issue, but “Here we go, here we go,” as they say in soccer circles. The vehicle is in better shape than when he took the wheel, but will it collapse when the jack is removed?

Following the 1997 election and before the heady days of devolution, Brian Wilson appeared with the unusual distinction in politics of having had a real job, if journalism counts. A genial chap with real interest in teachers and schools, it was suggested that he should not unpack his bags at the Scottish Office as his destination lay in more southern climes.

Enter the dragon, or so she was portrayed. Helen Liddell presented herself as a working-class lassie from Coatbridge, and Mrs Sweeney tells me you can’t do any better than that.

As education chief, she would help others to succeed against the odds. An eloquent speaker and a forceful debater, she won an unprecedented ovation from the aforesaid heidies when her turn came. Her brief tenure was, however, characterised by accusations of teacher-bashing.

Sam Galbraith was a spin-doctor’s nightmare but, like Liddell, he was intellectually gifted and psychologically tough. He was singularly unfortunate in that the Scottish Qualifications Authority crisis was not of his making.

However, Galbraith’s brusque manner and his refusal to acknowledge realities led to public outrage, and his transfer to less strife-torn territory.

History will credit Jack McConnell with a brief but substantial contribution to Scottish education. Within days of appointment he had taken a decisive grip of the SQA. Sticking resolutely to the objective of delivering Results 2001 accurately and on time, he refused to be diverted by the opposition and media sharpening their knives. His tenacity was rewarded with a long-awaited breakthrough on teachers’ pay.

Until he arrived, it seemed that the promise of a new dawn for salaries and conditions might dissolve in national negotiations. The deal achieved under McConnell’s stewardship is a tribute to his expertise as a fixer.

Discipline has for too long been the issue that dares not speak its name. The imagination of governments and education authorities has often failed to stretch beyond “reducing exclusions” as a panacea for disruption. McConnell grasped the nettle and declared improving behaviour a key objective of his ministry. The solutions are far from simple but the task group report Better Behaviour: Better Learning offers a basis for action.

Who will inherit McConnell’s distinguished record? We will not fret too much over the succession, secure in the knowledge that whoever is appointed education minister, there will be another one along in a minute.

Pat Sweeney is headteacher at Holy Rood High School, Edinburgh