We now move to the next item of business, which is a Scottish National Party debate on motion S1M-1656, in the name of Michael Russell, on the future of Scottish education, and two amendments to that motion. As soon as he is ready, I will call Michael Russell to open the debate.

The First Minister is never an easy act to follow, especially if one speaks English.

I would like to outline the components of the motion in my name. It is like Gaul—divided into three parts. The Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs is a classicist and understands these things.

The first part is about what has been achieved. It is fair to give credit where credit is due. Yesterday, the minister was concerned about failing teachers. He has, of course, a series of predecessors who were failed or failing ministers—Raymond Robertson, Brian Wilson, Helen Liddell and Sam Galbraith. All of them failed to reach agreement or settlement with the Scottish teaching profession and failed to provide the context in which real development could take place in Scottish education. Where they failed, this minister has succeeded and I give credit to him. He may be in his post accidentally—the right man in the right place—but he has succeeded in achieving an agreement that will, I think, provide a period of stability in Scotland's schools and begin to provide a period in which there can be some consensus about what education is for.

The great advantage of the settlement is that it gives us the opportunity to ask basic questions. What is education for? What type of educational system do we want in Scotland? How can we achieve it? The rest of my motion is about those issues. It asks the questions and it begins to give some answers.

No party in this Parliament has a monopoly of educational wisdom or any other wisdom. There should be a vast debate in Scotland on what education is for. I hope that the minister will confirm this morning that he intends to bring forward a green paper on Scottish education. His department has planned to do so. We could then have a debate in the context of knowing that the major difficulty in building Scottish education has been removed and that we will have a period of co-operation and consensus in the classroom.

It is unfortunate that the Labour amendment—or the Executive amendment—to my motion cuts out the words "beneficial development", because we should be considering what beneficial developments there can be in Scottish education.

I will talk about those developments in a moment, but before I do I would like to talk about the part of my motion that deals with distracting voices from elsewhere. Many people in Scotland are immensely concerned about the noises that they hear from south of the border as we build towards a general election. I do not know whether people in the chamber have read the Prime Minister's words from Monday. They make entertaining reading. We are used to the First Minister's syntax and he now appears to be writing for the Prime Minister, which is a worrying development. The Prime Minister said:

"Diversity must become the norm, not the exception".

That is probably impossible, but that is what the Prime Minister said.

The message from south of the border could be welcomed only by bullet-headed reactionaries—which, of course, is not a reference to any member on the Tory benches. The message seems to be encapsulated in the Tory amendment. The message talks about privatisation, it talks about selection and it talks about levels of specialisation that are absolutely foreign to the Scottish educational system.

Very generously, the SNP motion gives the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs and the Executive an opportunity to say that they will not follow the route that is being laid out by the Prime Minister. I am happy to give them that opportunity, and I am happy to give them the opportunity to confirm that the Scottish educational debate will be one that matters and that we will not listen to, take account of or implement the type of things that we hear from south of the border. Parents are genuinely worried; teachers are genuinely worried. There are people in Scottish education who know that what is said by any Prime Minister today finds its way into the Scottish educational system tomorrow.

I want to talk about one of the things that we hear about from south of the border—league tables—and about changes that we need to make. I know that the minister will tell us in his speech that there are no such things as league tables in Scotland. He may use the word that he used to describe them yesterday—mythic. If the minister would like to intervene, I would be happy to listen to him. In reality, much time and effort is expended in Scotland in producing what are essentially league tables.

On the internet, incidentally, we have a Government and not an Executive—the site is called scotland.gov and not scotland.exec. No doubt Mr McCabe will do something about that.

You forgot the ".uk".

I think that scotland.gov sounds better than scotland.gov.uk—but then, I would. Mr McConnell is splitting hairs as usual.

Do not talk about hair.

Indeed. I am not going to get into an argument about lack of hair with anybody, especially not with the leader of my party.

The lists of tables that are published on the internet show Scottish school costs, attendances and absences, and examination results. There is a website that asks, "How good are our results?" A league table is a league table is a league table. The information that is published on websites and published by the Government is essentially information that provides league tables in Scotland. Those league tables are damaging to Scottish education. They have found their way over the border thanks to the Scottish Conservative party and they have stayed over the border thanks to Scottish new Labour. They distort what can be done in Scottish education.

A great deal of time and effort is expended by schools that are trying to get the right results in the league tables. Sometimes it happens by accident. If I were to ask members what schools in Foula, North Ronaldsay, Cliasmol, Eriskay, Iona, Torridon and Papa Westray have in common, the answer would be that they had perfect attendance in 1999. However, the purpose of publishing that information on the internet is not clear. Are there parents who are so interested in perfect attendance that they will uproot their children from Easterhouse or Pilton so that they can attend school in North Ronaldsay?

Foula Primary School is a good school.

I am happy to hear a defence of Foula Primary School. I would love to have attended Foula Primary School. However, the publication of information about attendance at Foula Primary School is not necessarily of great benefit to those who live elsewhere. I am sure that the member for Shetland is interested in it, but not many others are. The information that is published is, to be frank, of little use to most people.

It is mince.

Mince indeed. As Kay Ullrich says, it is mince. The reason that the information was published in England was to begin to attract pupils from one school to another and to encourage the competitive ethos between schools. There is no need for that in Scotland; it is contrary to the Scottish educational tradition and the time and effort that is expended on it is absolutely wrong.

A great deal of work has been done on considering league tables throughout the United Kingdom. It is interesting to note that the best work that has been done in Scotland has been done by Dr Linda Croxford at the centre for educational sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her conclusions are shortly to be published in an academic journal on educational research and evaluation. Her article has been subjected to full peer review. It is not an expression of opinion; it is an academic analysis of league tables. She says:

"We conclude that the broad . . . targets derived using the . . . Audit Unit's methodology do not have statistical or educational validity".

There is no statistical or educational validity either in league tables or in target setting.

It is clear that we do not need the information that is in the league tables. Statutory instruments ensure that schools publish their own yearbooks and handbooks. That information could be made available on the internet—there is no reason why the handbook of every school in Scotland should not be made available if the Government really wishes parents to see the reality of schools. I would encourage that, rather than the present way of giving information. I hope that the Executive will listen.

It could be argued that league tables should not exist at all. That is not to argue that targets and assessment should not exist.

The member is well known for his commitment to openness in Government.

Yes.

If information is readily available in the Executive and in local authorities, should that information, as league tables or in other forms, not be available to parents so that they can decipher the school's performance?

There is a great deal more information available than the information that is published by the Government. I am happy for all the information to be published. That is why I suggest that all school handbooks are published. That would give complete information on every school in a context that parents can understand, and would also encourage parents to visit schools.

Have you ever seen a school handbook?

I have seen them, read them, marked them and inwardly digested them. I am sure that it is easier for someone who is butterfly minded simply to flick through the league tables. In something as important as education it is better to encourage parents not only to look at information on the school but to visit the school and to talk to other parents about it. That is what we should encourage.

On target setting and assessment, it is clear that in any good educational system there should be targets set by teachers. Children should be continually assessed by their teachers. There is something very Stalinist, very five-year-plan-ish, about insisting that targets should be set and assessment should be imposed from the centre. Attempts have been made in recent years, as Mr McConnell indicates, to try to devolve target setting to schools. The reality is that schools still have to try to perform to criteria set elsewhere. That skews the learning that is done in schools. There is no doubt that children are being taught simply to meet targets and to pass assessments. There is more externally moderated assessment in Scottish schools than in any other schools in Europe. We do not see any benefit from it in the results.

There is a place for target setting and for externally moderated assessment, but the people who sat on the inquiry into the Scottish Qualifications Authority—and Cathy Peattie was one of them—know that one of the major problems for the SQA was the burden of data that went into the system, which it could not cope with. That burden of data came from the huge range of demands made on schools by externally moderated assessment that, in evidence to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee that Ian Jenkins will also remember, the schools said was unnecessary.

All teachers—good and bad teachers, but especially good teachers, of whom there are a great many—set targets for their pupils and assess them. They know that there should be some external checking of the work that they have done. However, constantly to examine the mechanism, for ever to be taking the watch to pieces to make sure that it is working, is very destructive in the classroom. Time is spent on very narrow learning tasks rather than on the broadest learning tasks.

The motion encourages the Executive to do a number of things. It encourages the Executive to celebrate the settlement in Scottish classrooms and not to complain about "failing teachers" but to work with other people to solve that problem.

I have listened very carefully to what Mike Russell has said so far. I am alarmed that I am not hearing what he is in favour of, only what he is against. Many models of assessment from south of the border are worth looking at, such as the baseline assessment that is advocated by Birmingham City Council to identify where children are when they begin education and, at each stage, to try to change that.

That is a welcome development and it is important for parents to have that information. If there are very similar catchment areas with an achieving school and, a mile down the road, a non-achieving school, what strategy would the SNP adopt? How would it change the experience of education for children in the most disadvantaged communities?

That is a very simplistic approach from someone who knows the complexity of the system.

Mike Russell would understand it then.

I will take no lessons in understanding from Mr Monteith.

To answer Mr McAveety's question, I would need to have his definition of a school that it is not achieving. Certainly it would be necessary to look very closely at the school. As I said at the beginning of my speech, let us engage in a debate about what is right for schools, and let us try to engage in it together in the Parliament as we have done in the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.

I am being clear about what I am in favour of: an educational system that allows people to learn, uninterrupted by over-targeting, over-assessment and without that learning being skewed by the publication of league tables that are not useful and are, indeed, damaging. As Mr McAveety knows, I am in favour of many other things in education as well, which we will debate over the weeks and months to come.

The two amendments to our positive motion are extremely unhelpful. The Tory amendment is simply reactionary and makes no educational sense whatsoever. It is an amendment from a party that has learned nothing either in government or in opposition and that has a bankrupt right-wing ideology. I am more hopeful about the Executive amendment. Vague as it is, light as it is—as Mr McConnell indicates—by not saying very much, it gives me an indication that the Executive is sympathetic to changing the way in which things are done in Scottish schools.

There are some good signs from Mr McConnell. When he came into office he took out of the filing cabinet the file that Sam Galbraith had put away that is marked "All the positive things that we should be doing". The things we are talking about today are also positive. I hope that Mr McConnell will consider them seriously and that, as we debate them over the months to come, we will get to a definition of Scottish education that allows Scottish young people to learn in the way that the Scottish traditions of education have shown is the best way.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the acceptance of the McCrone settlement by Scottish teachers and looks forward to a new era of co-operation and consultation between government, teachers, parents and education authorities which could result in much beneficial development of our educational system; rejects the moves towards selection and privatisation of education outlined by the Prime Minister in recent speeches; expects the Scottish Executive to make no attempt to imitate such policies which are not only directly contrary to the Scottish educational ethos but would re-create resentment and division in our schools; calls upon the Scottish Executive to emphasise its desire to improve Scotland's distinctive education system by following the example of the Northern Ireland Executive in abandoning league tables, and further encourages the Scottish Executive to re-examine critically target setting for schools and the burden of externally imposed assessment on Scotland's young people.

I welcome the consensus in the chamber on educational matters over recent months, but that can sometimes be a little bit boring so I welcome the opportunity this morning, at Mr Russell's instigation, for a proper debate. There are three very different ideologies of education operating in this chamber, and if that is exposed this morning, that will be good for Scotland as well as for the parties in the coalition.

Much that is very good is happening in Scottish education. I think that it would be hard to find a realistic and honest person in either of the Opposition parties who is opposed to the many measures that are now making such a difference, from nursery schools through to the end of secondary school. In recent years, there has been an expansion of nursery school provision to include all four-year-olds and which will soon include all three-year-olds. There has been a systematic reduction in class sizes in the early years in primary schools, and early intervention schemes have been introduced to help pupils who for family or other reasons are starting to fall behind in the early years. We are seeing quality, diversity and standards brought into the primary curriculum. In the secondary sector there is the development of new community schools and action starting to happen on attendance, discipline and school buildings. There is the current action to ensure that the reputation of Scotland's exam system is restored and that this year's diet of examinations is run accurately and on time.

Those are all positive developments that command a sense of common purpose in the chamber, a shared feeling about education and where we are going. Although we may disagree on the policies to achieve it, we also share a sense that the purpose of education policy is to raise levels of attainment and achievement and to promote excellence throughout Scottish education and, in the longer term, to promote lifelong learning from the cradle to the grave. I believe that we have a structure in place that will start to achieve that.

In the national framework—

I did not want to interrupt Mr McConnell in his first minute, but will he concede that there may be four different views of education in Scotland in this chamber?

That will be interesting to discover: we will have to wait and see. I hope that Mr Harper will welcome the fact that our model is at least sustainable.

There have been two serious structural changes in the national framework. One—as Mr Russell may have been alluding to—has been to the inspectorate. I believe that we need to have a strong, independent inspectorate for Scotland's schools and its local education authorities. That inspectorate should inspect and report and not make policy. I believe that we have achieved that division of responsibilities. The new agency will be in place on 1 April 2001. That will be good for Scottish education. The agency will drive up standards and clarify where the policy responsibility lies.

The framework of national priorities, local improvement plans and school development plans—properly inspected, but put together locally in an open and accountable way—can drive up standards in every school. We want to see every school as an improving school. We want to see standards raised in every classroom across Scotland. I want to see the classroom at the centre of our education policy, rather than our education policy being imposed on the centre of the classroom.

Yesterday, we debated the agreement reached for a future quality teaching profession for Scotland. That agreement gives us the opportunity to have a quality profession with quality rewards, as part of a quality system. The purpose of the system is not to reward teachers, employ teachers or listen to teachers. The purpose of those three elements is to ensure that pupils and parents have the best possible education service in Scotland.

I want to turn to the SNP motion and the Tory amendment, and will start by looking at the motion in front of us today. Perhaps, in these early days of George Bush's presidency—given the American President's use of syntax—it is dangerous to use phrases such as back to the future. That said, I think that the SNP motion would take us backwards into the future. We would have a very depressing view of Scottish education if we went down the road that Mr Russell outlined.

I have to say that Mike Russell has made some welcome changes to the nationalist education policies in recent months. I remember Nicola Sturgeon's opposition last year to the setting up of the McCrone committee. That committee has made such a difference to developing a momentum for change, and has led to the unique partnership that was realised this week in the agreement. At that time, I believe that the nationalists were also opposed to the abolition of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee. Now there is a broad consensus across Scotland that the new tripartite machinery can, and will, work in practice.

It is much more worrying that the SNP motion is a plea for caution and conservatism, for the motion says that everything is okay and that nothing should change. I think that it is a sad day when the party of conservatism in education is the nationalist party and the party of dangerous radical change is the Conservative party. It is a very sad day for the Scottish Parliament that we have a motion from the nationalists that refers to a debate taking place in England and in Wales. That is not the debate that should be taking place in this chamber: we are here to debate the Scottish education system and to point the way ahead.

I entirely agree with the minister—

I thought that that might provoke Mr Russell.

I would be very happy if the minister were prepared to take the opportunity that I have given him to refute completely that the debate that is taking place in England will have any part in setting his policies. If he is prepared to say that now, on the record, I promise that this is the last time that we will debate it.

There will be an entirely separate and distinct green paper on the Scottish education system before the end of the calendar year and I look forward to the debate that that will promote.

If Mr Russell's comments about the speeches made by the Prime Minister and Mr Blunkett earlier this week mean that he is against choice, diversity, improvement, standards and excellence in education, it is Mr Russell who is wrong, not the Prime Minister and Mr Blunkett, and his motion is wrong too.

There are no league tables in Scottish education; there is a publication of statistics, which every parent, pupil, community, education policy maker and elected politician with responsibility for education should welcome and use to drive up standards across Scotland's schools. There are no centrally imposed targets in Scotland's schools; there are targets that are set by the schools, which should be published and met, ensuring that standards are driven up to improve excellence and performance.

The publication of those statistics is good for Scotland's schools. Let me tell members about a school in my constituency, Braidhurst High School, which is approximately half a mile from another, Dalziel High School. Dalziel High School is a well-known school in Lanarkshire, which attracts pupils from outwith the catchment area, has a high level of academic and sporting achievement and has won awards. About five years ago, Braidhurst High School was struggling in relation to Dalziel High School. It had difficult social and economic conditions in the two communities that it serves, a low morale among staff and parents, low achievement levels and a falling school roll. That school has been turned round by the hard work of the head teacher, the teachers, pupils and parents. The fact that Braidhurst High School can see in the publication of the individual information about every school—not in a league table—that it has the second highest level of attendance of any North Lanarkshire school is a source of pride, raises morale and provides an opportunity to move forward. The school deserves great credit for that achievement.

The motion that we are debating implies that we should abandon target setting, the publication of information and assessment procedures and that there should be no change in Scottish education. That would be wrong and I am opposed to the motion on that basis. I am also opposed to the amendment in the name of Brian Monteith. I agree with Mr Russell—another worrying outbreak of consensus—that the Tory amendment is a worrying development. There is no place in the Scottish education system for privatisation, selection or streaming. I support diversity and choice, ensuring that the education in the classroom is right for the current level of ability and development of the children in that classroom.

We need to refine the procedures that give children—at whatever point in the ability range—the right opportunity to reach their full potential. I do not want Scotland's children at a very early age to be split off into different classes in different schools and told that they are failures. Those children cannot be failures and must be encouraged to be successes.

The minister will note that the amendment does not suggest what he has just outlined. Given that the minister has said that he does not believe in privatisation, is he announcing to the chamber that, in future, he will be curtailing or withdrawing the grant aid that the state gives to St Mary's Music School, which is an independent school? Is that what he would describe as privatisation, or is it an entirely different concept which we have not yet heard about?

It is an entirely different concept of which Mr Monteith has clearly never heard.

The policies that Mr Monteith and Mr McLetchie have espoused in recent weeks are about the structural break-up of the Scottish education system and are not about raising standards, excellence or driving up performance. That is why those policies are wrong. I am very keen to promote a debate about Scottish education, but right now I seek a period of stability and less initiative. I want to end the period of feast or famine in pay disputes. I want to ensure that discipline and order in the classroom and the ethos of our schools, the morale of our teaching staff, the publication of statistics, the driving up of standards and the reporting of that all take place in an atmosphere that encourages improvement in performance and results.

Later this year, we should start to look to the future. There are massive changes taking place in technology, the nature of citizenship and the economy. There should be changes taking place—although not too many or simply driven for the sake of it—in our curriculum to ensure that it is relevant for the 21^st century and not just for the latter half of the 20^th century. To do that, we need to look carefully at whether the changes of the past 20 years are working properly. We need to ensure that our education system is a system that we can be proud of. There is no more important task or tool for our policy of social justice. There is no more important vehicle for opportunity and equality. I believe that we will make history in this Parliament if we make our education system one in which we can be proud again.

I move amendment S1M-1656.1, to leave out from "which could result in" to end and insert:

"; believes that world class education is essential to give every child the best possible start in life and is critical to the future prosperity of Scotland; welcomes the clear vision that puts the interests of the child at the centre of the improvement of Scottish education embodied in the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000; and recognises the clear priority which the Executive has given to raising standards and promoting ambition for all."

I was interested to hear Mike Russell say that he feels that the Conservatives in particular have learned nothing from their period in government and, humbly, in opposition. I assure Mr Russell that we have learned a great deal, particularly from the period in opposition. We have learned that if we have popular education policies, the Government will adopt many of them and a new consensus will be established—a consensus to which the minister himself drew attention in his speech.

I will remind the chamber of some of the areas in which we have learned that having popular education policies is beneficial. For example, there should be a degree of selection in schools. As the spokesman for the SNP told us, Mr Blair has moved to that position. That there should be direct funding of schools is a position shared by no less than Gordon Brown. The funding of new schools through private finance initiatives has been enhanced and developed by the Scottish Executive. Many of our policies in schools themselves, such as league tables, have become part and parcel of the education consensus, which Mike Russell now seeks to challenge.

Let us look at what Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said and what it means. The Prime Minister has advocated that 5 per cent of English pupils should be admitted by selection. That is hardly groundbreaking stuff. He has said that diversity is what counts. I welcome the Prime Minister's move to produce proposals for diversity south of the border. I welcome a British debate, even though English education is separate from Scottish education, for unlike Mike Russell I do not have any English prejudices that tell me that we cannot learn from the English education system—

rose—

rose—

I knew that that would provoke a reaction. I do not have any prejudices that tell me we cannot learn from the English debate.

My English prejudices include the fact that I was born in England, so I have a warm and sympathetic view of what takes place south of the border. However, I do not think that in education the English are ahead of Scotland. As Brian Monteith now approves of what they are doing, that proves that they are not.

As I will show, Mike Russell is not aware of what is happening in Scotland and therefore does not understand his brief. I am well aware that Mike Russell was born in Bromley in Kent. That is why we refer to him as Russell and Bromley.

Let us look at the reality in Scotland's schools. Already, many state schools use selection. Mr Russell clearly is not aware of that. Broughton High School in Edinburgh, which sits in the shadow of Fettes College, the Prime Minister's old school, specialises in music and takes pupils following auditions to test their ability. Even pupils who attend Broughton High School because they live in the catchment area have to take auditions to receive the specialist music tuition—it is hardly a comprehensive system.

I pay tribute to Broughton High School. It is possible to offer some specialisation within the comprehensive system in all Scotland's cities, but for people who live in Motherwell—the minister referred to Braidhurst High School and Dalziel High School—there is not the same spread of ability to offer the same quality and breadth of education and specialisation as can be found in the cities.

That is not to say that specialisation cannot be offered. I accept that it is harder to provide specialisation in areas where there are only one or two schools, but that is not to say that it cannot be done.

I will provide more examples of selection. Bellahouston Academy specialises in sports. Pupils from outside its catchment area have to prove their sporting prowess before they can attend the school and benefit from its expertise. Other examples are Knightswood Secondary School, which specialises in dance; Douglas Academy, which specialises in music—as do Dyce Academy and schools in Fife; and Plockton High School, which specialises in traditional music and is not exactly in the heart of the urban belt. Furthermore, modern languages schools are being developed in Glasgow. The reality of our education system is that the comprehensive ethos is already breaking down; it has been breaking down for a number of years.

Would it be more accurate to say that the comprehensive system is evolving and developing in line with parents' aspirations and wider community needs? I welcome the fact that for the first time since I arrived in this chamber, Brian Monteith is praising the innovative work that has been undertaken by Glasgow City Council education department.

If only Frank McAveety and I spent more time drinking coffee together he would know that I could also praise the department for moving forward with the cluster approach to management in schools in Glasgow.

Having looked at the background, we see that through parental pressure and the belief that the comprehensive system is not delivering the schools they want for their children, parents have brought about change in schools. Are Mike Russell and the SNP saying that the schools that I have mentioned should stop their drive for excellence?

No.

Well, if they are not, that does not correspond with their motion. Is the SNP saying that we should have one size fits all— that we should have conformity in the name of social engineering? That is the logical extension of Mike Russell's motion, for not only is selection explicit in some Scottish schools, it is implicit in practically all other schools where competition exists.

Parents can and do select schools through house purchase. By moving to an area with a school that has a good reputation, parents select their children's schools. Educationally, that is absurd. It means that a bright child in Pilton has little chance of attending, say, the Royal High School because their parents do not live in Barnton and have no prospect of doing so.

Where is the social justice in the fact that only the wealthiest parents can choose the state school of their choice? Conservatives tried to tackle that by allowing parents greater flexibility through placing requests, a policy that we had to drag our opponents kicking and screaming to concede, for they see comprehensive schools as social engineering rather than education.

I am intrigued by the democratic line that Brian Monteith is taking. Can he tell me how the child of somebody who is living on benefits on a more impoverished estate in Edinburgh and who chooses a school on the west side, for example in Barnton, will get there? They do not have money for transport. He is proposing a divisive system.

I am not suggesting a divisive system. We know that parents make great sacrifices for their children. It would not be difficult to walk from Pilton to the Royal High School.

It is not "on your bike"; it is "on your shoes".

No.

As I said, Conservatives tried to tackle the situation by allowing parents greater flexibility. That is why we also need to maintain league tables, because they provide valuable information to parents, which allows them to challenge failing schools and bring pressure to bear through their own selection of schools. Of course they have access to handbooks, of course they can meet teachers, and of course they can meet other parents, but what Mike Russell is proposing can be more aptly put as "forward into the 1970s".

Let us consider the historical ethos of Scotland's education. Education has always had an important position in Scotland and was valued more highly here than in the rest of the British isles. It was seen as a ladder by which people from a poorer or underprivileged background could further themselves. To suggest that schools did not employ selection in the past and that they are not employing it now is to fail to see the reality.

Mike Russell's hypocrisy on this issue is clear: he says that selection should be stopped and that we should avoid it because it is an English concept, but just the other week I shared a hustings with him when we were at St Mary's Music School—an independent grant-aided school that not only takes state money but employs selection. There was no word from Mike Russell that that school does not fit in with his ethos. If we are to believe his motion and his actions in the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, however, he is against selective schools and grant aid. Is he against streaming? Is he against setting? I wonder whether that matters, when he tries to deny the reality of the consequences of the policies that he advocates.

The Conservatives do not believe that there is a monopoly in educational policy. I may be wrong—comprehensives may offer educational benefits. I am not convinced of that, but such schools should be allowed to exist and be part of the state system. All I say is that we should have a choice through diversity. Parents should be able to choose the education that they feel is right for their children. That may be a school that uses immersion language teaching or Gaelic-medium teaching. It may specialise in maths or, like Craigroyston Community High School in Pilton, it may be particularly good at getting pupils into art colleges and could develop a greater specialisation in arts and drama.

Let us have choice rather than a comprehensive system that is like a big yet ill-fitting red woolly cardigan that has holes in its elbows and missing buttons and was made from an old pattern that even retro fashion would not touch. If Mike Russell were a teacher, Jack McConnell and Ronnie Smith would boot him out of the profession for incompetence. Let us be thankful that Mike Russell is not a teacher. More important—and more serious—let us be thankful that Mike Russell is not the minister who is responsible for education, for then we really would have difficulty sleeping at night.

I move amendment S1M-1656.2, to leave out from "looks" to end and insert:

"the acknowledgement by the Prime Minister that a 'one size fits all' comprehensive system of education is failing Britain's children; believes that choice through diversity and competition, together with the involvement of parents and the professional commitment of headteachers and teachers are the crucial factors in raising educational standards for all children; recognises that specialisation in subjects, selection and streaming are a necessary requirement for such diversity, and reaffirms that league tables provide a valuable source of information to parents to assess their local schools."

At the beginning of his speech, Michael Russell talked about the motion having three parts. I will talk about the first part.

I welcome the McCrone commission, its report and the endorsement given by 80 per cent of teachers, which gives us a significant mandate to progress that programme and raise the status of the teaching profession in its own estimation and that of the public. As I said yesterday, the salaries that the commission's report established must not be allowed to wither on the vine. We must change how public service pay is reviewed in the long term, so that it is not subject to boom and bust.

I welcome the winding-down scheme, which can change how we think of education. People who are in the profession but close to the end of their careers are of great value and will benefit from the scheme, which gives them an easier way of winding down out of the profession without losing pension.

I welcome the provision for primary school teachers to have more class contact time to do the job that we have for too long asked them to do without the facilities and time they require.

I welcome the chartered teacher initiative, but it must be clear that it is available to everyone who wishes to take it up. The quality of training and access to the scheme must not be subject to a ceiling or the conditions that were troublesome with the senior teachers initiative. The idea is to keep chartered teachers in the classroom, but the fact that administration has to be done in schools must be taken into account. Principal teachers cannot be left to do all the administration themselves. A mechanism is required by which the division of such work is agreed in schools. Structures must take account of local circumstances.

Extra time for professional development is one of the most important items in the McCrone settlement. It provides the opportunity to revitalise teachers. Teachers may think of the extra time as a threat; it is not that—it is an opportunity. Teachers who have worked in English classrooms for a long time take courses in drama, special educational needs or computing, which revitalise how they think of themselves and do their jobs. Sports coaching courses and other courses can open up avenues. I think that that is one of the good opportunities from McCrone to which Michael Russell's motion refers.

Teachers have long been underpaid, undervalued and overworked. I hope that McCrone will tackle the underpayment and undervaluing. The overwork has still to be examined. This should be a pivotal moment in the relationship between the Government and the teaching profession. More important, working and dialogue can be brought to bear throughout the whole teaching profession and the partners with which we work.

Mike Russell's mention of Tony Blair in the motion is mischievous. I will not indulge him by talking about Westminster. This is a Scottish Parliament discussing Scottish education. I believe that our school system should be public and have values that are based on equality of opportunity and parity of esteem for all pupils. It should seek to give every pupil a fair chance in life to grow as an individual and as a member of society. Those aspirations are most readily achieved in a comprehensive school setting, which is epitomised in the secondary schools that we find across Scotland in towns whose local high school has a clearly defined and comprehensive catchment area.

Of course such schools will strive for excellence. Many achieve it. There is no harm in schools playing to their strengths and seeking to establish a reputation for special excellence in an aspect of the curriculum. As Brian Monteith would say, there is a case to be made for schools that specialise in activities such as sport or music. We must get away from dogmatic argument. We must see what works best. Our system should not be monolithic: it should provide more room for experimentation, more diversity and more pluralism in provision, but it should be grounded in the public system that is based on the principles of equity that are well established in the Scottish educational world.

I do not like league tables: they are subversive and misleading and tell only a tiny part of the story about a school. I have no objection to parents having information; I object to the way in which league tables are promoted as a soundbite that tells us about the quality of a school. The tables are seductive. People find themselves looking to find out how their own schools have performed. We cannot help but be affected by them, against our better judgment. I have spoken about worries about statistics and tables and how they narrow our vision to matters that are easily measured. They create soundbite education and a distortion of the truth.

Schools are not just about examination results. They are about music, drama, sport, play, personal development, social interaction and creativity. They are about feelings, pupils' self-esteem, guidance and respect for others. A school's ethos cannot be captured in a league table. All the performance indicators in the world cannot reduce a school to a soundbite. While we are discussing funny statistics, I ask the minister again to examine relative ratings, which are my bête noire of school statistics. I will not go on about them now.

Targets are important, but I have worries about target setting when the targets are produced from outside—parachuted in—without reference to the facts and practice in schools. I recognise and encourage the movement to take schools along in the process of target setting. Targets are valuable in encouraging focused thinking, but we must avoid targets that distort how schools wish to teach. Sometimes, aiming for one target means that other considerations must be set aside and be reduced in importance in people's eyes. However, targets can be valuable. I attended a seminar at which a representative from Burnfoot Community School in Hawick gave a presentation that showed how targets had helped to raise the self-esteem and effectiveness of the school. When targets work and schools support them, they are valuable incentives. Mr Russell and the minister know well of my reservations about over-assessment in schools.

Testing is not the same as teaching. Although testing is necessary for formative work with pupils—and indeed for final assessments of achievement—it can get in the way of teaching. Testing can limit the vision of teachers and pupils, who cannot see the bigger picture because they are concentrating on next week's assessments. We have seen in the SQA crisis how an over-elaborate assessment system can lead to administrative difficulty. There are times when the wider aims of education are obstructed by a system that becomes obsessed with assessment.

I believe that the higher still English course is not serving its pupils well. It sets narrower aims and objectives than I would like for the teaching of English to fifth and sixth-year pupils in Scottish secondary schools.

In all the issues where I have disagreements with some people and where I have a particular point of view, I turn with great hope to Jack McConnell. Jack McConnell has established a platform on which teachers, the Executive and parents can work with one another. We have so many forums—so many opportunities—for discussion and debate. I believe that in discussion and debate, and in partnership between parents, teachers, pupils and the Scottish Executive, we have a bright future for Scottish education, where together we can raise standards and excellence to offer our pupils opportunities for the future.

We now come to the open part of the debate. I warn members that, even on speeches of four minutes, which is what I will allow, it is unlikely that all members will be called.

Let me just dispose of Jack McConnell's accusation that we on the SNP benches are a bit conservative by pointing out that, when I published my head teachers handbook, I said that the only constant in life is the inevitability of change. I said that we had to prepare the kids for that and that the staff had better try to get good at it. That is the game that we are all in just now.

I shall not dwell much on how education descended into this trough. Suffice it to say that the coincidence of Labour's insistence on all-through mixed-ability teaching without the resources it requires and league tables and Mrs Thatcher's scathing attacks on teachers during the 1980s produced a potent and negative mix. Throughout, teachers had to adapt to a whole lot of new courses.

League tables are devastating. I know that Jack McConnell denies their existence, but all the statistics are available: the newspapers publish them as tables and parents read them. Parents take the view that a school that produces perhaps 50 highers in a subject is inevitably and invariably better than one down the road that produces only three. The league table pays no regard to the abilities of the pupil intake or to the abilities of the staff. Aspiring parents take their children to what they perceive to be the better school and, five years later, the number of highers in the latter school has fallen even further and the whole thing becomes a downward spiral. That is the utterly negative effect of the publication of league tables—whether Brian Monteith likes it or not. I know because I was there. I did not find it a funny experience.

One aspect of education when I was a pupil was that people who narrowly failed their prelims did not get to sit the highers—to safeguard their school's record. I wonder to what extent that is still going on at different levels in the education system. Teachers and head teachers always have league tables at the back of their minds.

As someone who examined the league tables and chose a school for their children, I believe that it is the right of every parent to choose their children's school to give them the best education that is available. Parents have only one chance to decide on the best opportunity for their children and I find it insulting that Colin Campbell feels that parents should not have that chance.

I am sorry—I did not say that. Indeed, after much consideration, and for exactly the same reasons as Mary Scanlon, I shifted my second child from school A to school B. However, as somebody who ran a school that did not have a huge academic record, I am conscious that that is exceptionally damaging to schools that are lower down the league table.

When we find pamphlets from the Scottish Executive that talk about value added, as if we were skilfully improving on identical ingots of raw material rather than on people, have we not lost the plot a little? While statistics provide meat for analysts, the recording of the immutable fact that a school may never attain the Scottish average in any subject reinforces people's perception that it is at the bottom of a heap. There is no measure of the number of children who are kept out of jail because a school transmitted positive social attitudes to its students, or the family crises that are avoided because of systematic guidance, yet those are worthy ends for individuals whose life outwith school may be in chaos. They are immeasurable things.

Teachers have always been aware of the need for high standards—and they are proud to achieve them. They are now entrapped in too much assessment. Do folios measure a pupil's worth or a teacher's ability to persuade a pupil down the right road? Should teachers have to spend endless time nagging pupils and writing to parents to get the folios in? Is that not—as has been suggested—a waste of precious teaching time?

We have an opportunity to improve on the recent past. Jack McConnell knows the score—I will give him that. Scotland cares and education is faced with a challenge. With recognition of the inherited difficulties and intelligent attempts to diminish them—and with reason and good will—education will again be a rewarding activity for pupils and teachers. Jack McConnell can change Scottish education for the better. We will support that, but we will criticise Mr McConnell when we think it necessary.

I rise to support the amendment in the name of Jack McConnell. It is intellectually coherent and forward looking—in stark contrast to the reactionary nonsense in Mr Monteith's amendment and the somewhat flawed SNP motion.

The SNP motion and the Tory amendment mention league tables. The Tory amendment says that league tables are

"a valuable source of information".

No they are not.

Ian Jenkins eloquently made all the points I wanted to make. The performance of each school should be compared not with other schools but with the past record of that school. The school community should get together and, where there are deficiencies, work to address them.

As a parent who considered the league tables of schools in Edinburgh to choose a school for my children, I recollect that it is possible to compare the current performance of schools with that of previous years. That is a valuable source of information. I had no compunction about sending my child to a school other than the one they would have attended because of where we lived. However, I was able to observe whether the school had improved its performance or whether its performance had declined. Surely that is valuable.

That is valuable information, but it is not found in league tables. Where I find fault with the SNP's motion is that the Scottish Executive does not publish league tables—the media compiles them. Mike Russell said that we should be careful about what information we publish. That is not a very transparent approach. I was somewhat bemused when he said that publishing so much information displays a Stalinist or centralist tendency. Two characteristics of Stalinism were cruelty and secrecy. I do not accuse Mike Russell of cruelty, but he seems to leave too much to secrecy—I find that unacceptable.

The only league table that has any credibility and that I pay any attention to is the Scottish second division—the top of it in particular. The Executive amendment is about the real challenge that faces Scottish education, which is the need to build on the overwhelming acceptance by the teaching profession of the pay and conditions package reached in the fruitful negotiations with the minister. As a recent practitioner, I am pleased with the minimum salary increase of 23.1 per cent, which is a recognition—not before time—of the expertise and commitment of the teaching profession. I do not often use hyperbole, and I am not using it when I say that that recognition comes after years of being treated abominably by the Tories. The new chartered teacher grade will allow experienced classroom teachers to remain in the classroom—that is vital.

As someone who has also spent the past 20 years in the classroom, I welcome the salary increase for teachers, which recognises their service. What is Mr Butler's view on further and higher education lecturers, who also have to work extremely hard and whose contribution to education is equally vital?

That is not part of today's debate, but my view—and it is a pretty obvious answer to Mary Scanlon's question—is that it is up to the lecturers unions to negotiate with the proper authority.

It is vital that classroom teachers remain in the classroom, because we need experienced practitioners. Hitherto, teachers who wanted to get the remuneration that their experience and dedication merited had to move out of the classroom and into senior management. That was a loss to children and to education.

I welcome the other innovations, including the 4,000 additional teachers, the new winding-down scheme and the 3,500 additional support staff who will be employed. I believe that the Executive amendment is correct to say that

"world class education is essential to give every child the best possible start in life".

That is a laudable objective and I commend the amendment to the Parliament.

This morning we have heard the usual utterances and the troglodyte approach to centralisation of education from the SNP. The SNP has a fear of selection, creativity, local diversity and, most of all, parental choice. That has been accentuated today time and again. All of that was from Mr Russell, who constantly bangs on in the chamber about the richness of diversity in Scotland and how that should not be stifled. We hear that on every subject under the sun until, miraculously, it does not apply any more when he is speaking on education.

I just could not understand why, in Mr Russell's 17 minutes and what sounded like 4,500 words, we heard absolutely nothing about action, targets or outcomes for education. I hope that when she winds up for the SNP, Irene McGugan will address some of those issues. We heard nothing about a policy framework and nothing about resources to bring about the transformation in Scottish education that I think Mr Russell was hinting at. We heard nothing about how the SNP would involve parents and nothing, as the Labour party has pointed out, about how the progress of the child through the system can be monitored or about the response that should be made to any problems that are picked up in that process.

Does the SNP actually think that the current system is responsive enough for the needs of every individual child in Scotland? That is what the debate should be about. I was very worried to hear Jack McConnell talking about the needs of children. What about the needs of the child? That is what parents are concerned about and that is what the long-term future of education is about. It is not about delivering a mass product of the same uniform blandness. It is about helping people to be creative, self-supporting and able to move on and grasp opportunity with the basis of a decent education, which many of us received from the state system in Scotland.

At the school that I went to, Trinity Academy, we were streamed according to ability, but not just on the basis of a simple examination system. We had commercial courses, technical streams and academic streams, and pupils were often moved between them. I do not know what the idea is nowadays about dumbing down. We have not heard anyone referring this morning to the postcode lottery in Scottish education. This is the SNP's debate, but its members have not addressed that problem. It exists, but what will the SNP do about it? We have heard nothing.

Ring fencing merely supports central control.

I would like Mr Davidson to address central control. We have spoken about it before, but I understand that the Conservative policy in Scotland is to centralise decision making in an education centre here in Edinburgh. Can he confirm that?

You have just over a minute of your time left, Mr Davidson.

We will have that debate on another occasion. If we are looking at the real, meaningful application of educational opportunity in future, we must encourage parents to become responsible. School boards work. When I was a councillor, I started many school boards and they were successful. We should try to link parents, teachers and local councillors, if they are the people from the community who are supposed to know about things. We should consider a budget for a cluster of schools and ask whether it delivers for local children. Parents have a responsibility to get involved in that process. That is not centralisation. Central Government has a function in setting standards, but their delivery must be designed locally with the involvement of parents.

Will Mr Davidson give way?

Do I have time to take another intervention, Presiding Officer?

I shall stretch your time limit, Mr Davidson.

I think that Mr Davidson should answer Mr Rumbles's question, which was about the centralisation of control for education. Contrary to everything that Mr Davidson has said in his speech and everything that Mr Monteith said in his, the Conservative party's policy is to centralise decision making about the allocation to schools of resources, staff and equipment, and about the overall management of schools, here in Edinburgh, cutting out the elected local authorities. If that is the Conservative policy, will Mr Davidson confirm that?

I think that we should be asking the minister whether he will abandon the ring fencing that guarantees that schools have no flexibility. He gives them only a tiny amount of flexibility. He is the one who should answer the question. Will he stop ring-fencing? We will certainly change the mould from what has been going on until now. We will get parents and staff involved and give them the proper role that they should have had.

Classroom assistants are a typical example of Mr McConnell's policy. He ring-fences money for classroom assistants, but that puts resource pressure on being able to employ staff. Some schools have actually said that they will have to get rid of teachers to accommodate Labour's policy. When the Executive gets its act together, Mr McConnell can start lecturing us.

We simply must get the debate up a gear. Mr Russell has failed to do that. The debate is about how we can look at the needs of the individual child and the better allocation of resources and opportunity in education. I support Brian Monteith's amendment.

In a former, former life I was a secondary school teacher, and I remember the halcyon, pre-comprehensive days. I was opposed to comprehensive education when it was introduced, but I soon converted and saw its huge advantages—in justice for children in the education system, who were able to move freely as their talents developed, either up or down, and also in social justice. I will not say more about that now, because the Conservatives will never be in power, so we will never have to deal with what their amendment says.

The SNP welcomes the McCrone report. However, we must look forward to a period of stability in Scotland's classrooms. Teaching was a hard enough job when I did it and I know that it has become a darn sight harder with the blizzard of paperwork that teachers have to do and the huge assessment input that they have had to submit to the Scottish Qualifications Authority. There should be a period of quiet and consolidation now, and I congratulate Jack McConnell, whose old teacher genes are coming through, thank goodness, on agreeing a reasonable pay award that recognises the professionalism and skills of the class teacher. Good teaching is at the heart of developing an educated and, perhaps more important, compassionate society.

I want to say something about assessments. I have received correspondence from headmasters in the Scottish Borders. They say that one set of data on the assessment and attainments of candidates would be sufficient. I know that the Executive is looking into submissions of data. Those headmasters want submissions of data to be earlier. I understand that information was requested during the summer holidays, when key personnel were not available, and the headmasters hope that that will not recur.

I wrote to the Executive on that matter. The reply, dated 28 December 2000, indicated that the SQA is conducting a feasibility study with regard to implementing a simpler system of assessment. Will that feasibility study include consultation with head teachers associations and representatives of the profession? As they are being asked to deliver, it would be suitable if they were part of that feasibility study.

I am pleased that there will be financial recognition of the role of markers, although we know that many teachers have said that they undertake marking as a form of professional training for themselves. I am sure that the minister will confirm that inexperienced teachers will never again be appointed to mark papers. The discovery from a series of questions to the minister that that had been the case was astonishing. We must return to the previous status quo, which was one of security in our exam system and its results.

I want to move quickly to league tables or, as Mr McConnell would call them, publications of statistics. In my view, they are an anathema to a healthy education system because, as Mr Jenkins said, they falsely drive the teaching agenda. They make us start teaching to the test and return to the horrible days when—believe it or not—I was young and we taught to the old qually. Children spent term after term working on old papers to try to push up their marks. That is not education.

Of course, schools must maintain standards. We have Her Majesty's inspectors of schools. I am pleased to hear that the minister is separating the role of inspection from the role of policy. HMI drove the higher still programme, which was a real conflict of interest. There are school reports and school handbooks, but best of all, there is the word on the street—parental word of mouth—about a school's real value.

Finally, my colleague Mr Russell referred to the spectre of privatisation the Blair way: pitching school against school and breaking the homogeny of our school system and the curriculum within it, which—this is not a contradiction—allows schools to develop their own educational personalities and specialisms.

As far as I am concerned, we cannot build a high enough Hadrian's wall between the English education system—I say that, and my mother is English—and the democracy of the Scottish system.

I support the motion.

It is a pleasure to take part in a debate that is a sensible discussion about real issues and in which there is a wide band of consensus across the Parliament, although some people would like things done in different ways. That is real politics. We suffered yesterday from the tactical ineptitude of the Executive and earlier this morning from the tactical ineptitude of the SNP. It is a pleasure to take part in a real debate.

My colleague Ian Jenkins covered matters well from the point of view of the Liberal Democrats. As one of the wicked dual members—who will soon cease—I can say that my English colleagues have great concerns about many of the educational ideas that are promoted in England. There are some good things, but there are a lot of dangerous and bad things. It is relevant to mention them, because history shows that because the English are so much more numerous than we are, ideas do cross Hadrian's wall in a northerly direction. We must express great concern about some of the things—although not all of them—that the Administration in England is doing.

I want to broaden the subject out to include education outwith school hours, which—with all due respect to teachers, of whom I was one for 10 years—is far more important than education within school hours. When young people learn from their peer group—they learn far more from them than they do from baldies like me—their enthusiasm, whether for the school orchestra, the chess club, drama or sporting events, gives them character and interest throughout life. That is developed after school hours. We must have a much better system of paying teachers and non-teachers to support such after-hours activity in schools.

We must also properly support our whole youth and community education system, which is still going down and is not a high priority of the Executive, although it should be. One has to search industriously in Executive documents to find constructive ideas about youth activities and to find any money that is being given to them. It is important that we provide good activities for young people. Many good things are being done. To take a simple example, last Friday I visited a youth centre called Terminal One, in Hamilton, which is now supported by the local authority. It was not before, so that is good. The project is particularly good at training people in all sorts of music, not of the sort that I go in for, but of the sort that young people go in for. The project does not get funding for that because of some bureaucratic hang-up. That is the sort of thing that we must cure.

We must support really good activities for young people. We must give them interests and enthusiasms and help the people who have skills to teach them. That will soon pay for itself by reducing the necessity for police, jails and all that. It is the preventive medicine argument: if we produce good things for young people to do, not only will they create less trouble and therefore cost less, but we will create human capital—happy people with a future and a life that they can look forward to enjoying, which is what we are here for. That is not happening, because of the persistent denigration of and cuts to community education and youth activities that there have been over many years.

I call on the Executive to have a system that helps more after-hours activities in schools and gives greater support to youth clubs, sport, drama and other such things across the country. We will then build on the good work that is being done in schools—Jack McConnell deserves credit for the progress that he has made so far—and we might start to create a Scotland of which we can all be proud.

Today's debate has been quite odd, in particular the approach taken by the SNP. There were three main strands to it. First, there was the welcome for the McCrone settlement, which we can all unite on. The second strand, which was particularly odd, was the fact that the SNP wanted to spend some of its valuable time in Parliament debating potential changes to the English education system. I do not know quite what that demonstrates. If Mike Russell wants to give advice on the English system, he should perhaps join his lost leader, Alex Salmond, in standing for election to Westminster. The other major strand of Mike Russell's speech related to a plea to abolish league tables which, as Jack McConnell has emphasised time and again, do not exist—they are not published by the Scottish Executive.

It is not clear to me quite how the SNP aims to achieve that. I share many of the concerns expressed by Ian Jenkins, Bill Butler and others about league tables representing schools in a way that can be misleading and distorting. I ask the SNP to clarify how it intends to stop the information getting into the public domain. Does it want the information not to be released?

First, I congratulate the member on his change of shirt and tie, away from the yellow and red of yesterday.

Let me make it quite clear, as I did to Mr Monteith and Mr McConnell—if the member was not listening, I will make it clear to him again—that I believe that school handbooks, which contain that information and a range of other information, should be published as widely as possible. All of them should be on the internet, as the non-league tables—the ones that do not exist—are. Then we will have a rounded view. We will also encourage parents to go and see schools. That is the best way to do it.

I remain puzzled as to quite how Mike Russell intends to stop the Scottish media publishing league tables of performance data. Does the SNP want restrictions on the freedom of the press?

I want to move forward, because very little in the SNP's contribution today tackled standards in Scottish schools, which is the key issue and the one that we should focus on. As has been said, the amendment lodged by the Executive raises the aspiration of developing a world-class education system in Scotland. What have we done since the Parliament was elected? The first major bill that was passed was a bill on raising standards and attainment levels for every child in every school in Scotland. Through McCrone, we have achieved a settlement, as a result of much hard work in negotiations between ministers, the teaching unions and local authorities, which it is widely recognised will make a major contribution to recognising the professionalism of Scotland's teachers, the need to remunerate them accordingly, the need to attract new graduates into the profession and the need for continuing professional development throughout teachers' careers. The deal, which was supported overwhelmingly by teachers in the ballot whose result was announced this week, will build a solid partnership between the Government and the teaching profession to improve our education system.

What have we done on resources? Labour has made education a top priority throughout its time in office and has allocated additional resources. I will draw on some examples from my own area. This year, the education budget in West Lothian will rise by £6 million from £90 million to £96 million, even before additional resources have been allocated through the excellence fund.

Extra resources are being made available to develop the new community schools programme. Since the inception of West Lothian Council in 1996, the Labour local authority has made investment in the fabric of schools a continual priority. Perhaps I should mention an example of the SNP's priorities. The SNP's guidance to the newly elected West Lothian Council was to spend some of its resources on a deluxe golf course. I enjoy a game of golf, as does the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, but I think that we would both prefer deluxe schools far more than deluxe golf courses.

There is already clear evidence that attainment levels are rising throughout Scotland. In my own area, levels have risen in four out of the five major categories in which attainment is measured for standard grades and highers. In primary schools, measured against the five-to-14 curriculum, there is a continued improvement in reading, writing and mathematics, which mirrors the improvement throughout Scotland.

There is still much to be improved in the Scottish education system, including—as other members have recognised—the rebuilding of confidence in the examination system. However, I believe that there is also clear evidence that we are making substantial progress and taking substantial steps towards building the world-class education system that is mentioned in the Executive amendment.

I indicate my support for Michael Russell's motion and in particular for what he said about league tables, which fail to value the work of students and teachers in our schools and also in our universities and colleges. It is about time that league tables were scrapped.

I also welcome Michael Russell's comment that the real debate about what education is for can now begin. The Executive has laid the foundations for that debate by accepting the McCrone report.

I will pull together what Donald Gorrie, David Davidson and other members have said about education focusing on the child, the whole child and the development of our pupils. Universities and employers throughout Scotland complain year on year on year that, when our pupils arrive at university and in employment, they suffer—however well qualified they may be academically—from lack of confidence in themselves and their abilities. That must have something to do with the present ethos of our education system: its drift towards more concentration on assessment and qualifications and away from what the ethos of schools used to be.

I had the good luck to teach in a school in Buckhaven called Braehead; it was a small junior secondary with 400 pupils, which was led by the late and great R F MacKenzie. It had four art teachers, four music teachers, a full-time teacher of outdoor education including climbing, and three teachers of outdoor education from other departments, who would take pupils gliding, sailing and so on.

Those ideas fed through into the Scottish education system for many years. By the mid-1970s, every school in Lothian region had an outdoor education teacher.

I ask the Executive to consider, first, what has happened to outdoor education in Scotland, because it is one of the principal methods of getting pupils to work together and of developing confidence in a whole range of abilities that sitting in a classroom can never address.

The second debate that must be opened up is the place of environmental education in Scottish education, because I do not think that it is highly enough valued. A lot of lip service is paid to it and it is mentioned everywhere, but it happens in very few places.

The third point is the place of music and art. Why do we have to have specialist schools? Broughton is a wonderful school, but why do we not have other schools with similar opportunities for children who are musically gifted and schools that enable students to take advantage of similar levels of teaching in art?

We must have a debate about the shape of education in Scotland, about what schools provide for pupils and the way in which we need to extend the possibilities for pupils to do other things in our classrooms.

MacKenzie campaigned against any kind of examination system. Although I will not say anything like that in the chamber, I invite members to take away this idea. If we can imagine Scottish education without any exams or assessments, we can begin to think about what education should be about.

I am not—and never have been—a teacher. However, I am a parent and consumer and believe passionately in a system of comprehensive education that can deliver for every child in every community.

I am delighted to sum up the debate on behalf of the Labour party, because time and again, Labour has put education at the heart of the agenda. When Mike Russell started his speech by saying that he had three points to make, I thought that he had fallen back into his previous position as lay preacher. Perhaps if he had, his comments might have had some vision; however, this time, he fell short of his aims.

I will respond to some of the main points in the SNP motion. I am happy to talk about Labour's achievements such as the significant investment in education. However, the issue of education requires more than investment. As a result, we have introduced nursery places for all three and four-year-olds as well as the early intervention scheme to tackle children's literacy and numeracy problems. We have also abolished the assisted places scheme to ensure that money will no longer be given to people who can afford it to take their kids out of the comprehensive system; instead, money will go back into the system once and for all. Brian Monteith would have us reverse that policy.

One of the debate's key issues is the ethos by which education can develop and survive. I want a system in Scotland in which schools no longer underachieve. Indeed, we must be honest with each other and say that some schools still underachieve. It is quite simple to measure such underachievement; it happens when any child in a school does not achieve their full potential, and the Government, the Parliament and the Education, Culture and Sport Committee must take measures to ensure that every child in school achieves that potential.

There is much consensus in the debate. We must examine the types of information that are supplied and whether it is the right information. Although I think that it is important for parents to have information, it must be qualitative as well as quantitative information. People need to know whether a school is in an area with a high incidence of unemployment where family members have never aspired to go to university or into further education. Siblings will have the same lack of aspirations and opportunities.

I wonder whether the minister agrees that there is a point—

Promotion!

Well, of course. I recognise quality when I see it.

Because we are so affected by the ideas that are promulgated by the UK media, it is difficult to persuade Scottish parents that Scottish schools have a different ethos and outlook. Instead of saying that we will withhold information from parents, we should be considering more imaginative ways of getting positive information. How will we overcome the hurdle of the terrible embarrassment of Blair calling the educational shots in England?

Margo MacDonald has made one of the most coherent and constructive comments that I have heard from the SNP today. Perhaps her leaders should think about using her more often.

What we are debating today is the issue of devolution and of making policies for Scottish education. Tony Blair and the English Government can introduce policies for England and Wales—

The British Government.

I apologise. I am a unionist and proud to be part of the UK, as David McLetchie well knows.

Bill Clinton said, "It's the economy, stupid!" I think that the comment should be, "It's devolution, stupid!" We should not be obsessed with the education system in England and Wales; instead, we should be obsessed and paranoid about the Scottish education system and drive continually to ensure that Scottish standards are as high as possible. We must ensure that what we do is exactly right for Scotland.

Will Karen Gillon give way?

I am in my final minute.

Some good initiatives are being implemented in England and Wales. I recently visited a sports college in Manchester, which provided an excellent example of what can be done to raise the level of achievement of young people—an initiative to help underachievers through sport. That initiative could be introduced in Scotland. Every member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee signed up to having that investigated as a possibility—even the SNP members.

Some positive things are being done in England, of which we can leave the worst and take the best, in the interests of Scotland. That is devolution. That is what I want us to do. I hope that members will support the Government amendment.

I did not see Mike Russell leading the celebrations to mark the 100 ^th anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria. On the evidence of today's performance, he might well have done that. If Queen Victoria were to return, the aspect of society that she would recognise most clearly would be our schools, which have changed little in the past 100 years while every other aspect of society has undergone radical transformation.

We are rightly proud of our education traditions, and we should respect our education system as a great asset in the modern world.

Will David Mundell give way?

Not just yet.

As Alan Cochrane pointed out yesterday in The Daily Telegraph, we should not be complacent. Maintaining the status quo and suppressing innovation and radical change is wrong.

Will David Mundell give way?

Will David Mundell give way?

Not yet.

Successful economies around the world are experimenting and are willing to undertake radical change. We must be open to the same approach. The former Deputy Minister for Children and Education visited a school in Finland—a country about which we hear much from the SNP—where there are no teachers. I do not think that the Educational Institute of Scotland would sign up to such a proposal.

rose—

rose—

I give way to Mr McConnell.

I apologise to Mr Russell.

Age before beauty.

Mr Russell will never be called to speak.

Mr Mundell should acknowledge that there have been changes since Victorian times, which have been based on the choices that still exist. Comprehensive schooling, compulsory schooling, equal schooling for boys and girls, a school-leaving age of 16 and nursery schooling that is funded from the public purse have all been introduced progressively by Labour and Liberal Governments over the past century. All were opposed by Conservative Governments.

I do not accept that at all. Conservative Governments held office at Westminster for the vast majority of the previous century and carried out all the radical reforms.

We must be prepared to be radical. Tony Blair is right to say that bog-standard comprehensive schools are not the way forward in England and Wales. Similarly, no sort of bog-standard education is the way forward in Scotland.

Mr Mundell was in Finland before Mr McConnell interrupted him. He now appears to have left Finland without talking about it. Finland does not publish school league tables, set national targets or use much nationally set assessment. However, education standards are higher in Finland than in Scotland. I thought that we might have a wee chat about Finland, but Mr Mundell seems unprepared to have one.

You are in your final minute, Mr Mundell.

I would be happy to have a discourse about Finland, but we must first have a more detailed discourse about education in Scotland and move away from the SNP position of resisting change at all cost.

We are very much in favour of change.

In today's debate we have heard nothing about that. I cannot comment on what has been said by the SNP, because the SNP has said nothing.

David Mundell must be cloth-eared.

Michael Russell would do better to address himself to documents such as the Scottish Council Foundation publication "Changing schools", which concludes:

"It seems that the mood in education is shifting. More and more people have come to accept that radical change is needed. We appear to be on the cusp of great change—and at such times it often takes only a small action to transform the whole system into a new state."

On the evidence of today's debate, the SNP wants to take a step back, whereas the Conservatives are willing to take a step forward.

I am sorry that Mr Mundell has fallen into the Blairite trap of thinking more—

Mr Mundell has finished his speech and so cannot take an intervention.

Was that it? Gosh, I am glad that I did not blink.

Mr Mundell has finished partly because I indicated too early that he had only one minute left. I apologise for that, Mr Mundell, and I will ensure that the time is made up to you on a future occasion.

I sat down when you asked me to because I followed an education system in which one respected the person in the chair.

You might find that that phrase comes back to haunt you in future debates, Mr Mundell.

We welcome the broad support for the post-McCrone agreement that has been evident this morning from all parties. It is clear that not only is this an historic opportunity for the Scottish education system but that there is something approaching an historic consensus on the importance of the McCrone settlement.

The Executive has committed itself whole-heartedly to promoting improvement in the Scottish education system. A clear and compelling vision has been set out, founded on the new statutory right to education enacted by the Scottish Parliament and the strategic framework of priorities that has now been established. That will be backed by significant new resources on a scale never before provided in Scotland.

The issue is wider than that, however. In the past few weeks, some of the most significant changes in Scottish education for a long time have taken place—not only the McCrone settlement, but the changes in HMI, which have been referred to. An approach has been adopted that is being broadly welcomed as constructive and open. We are seeking to provide opportunities for local authorities, schools and teachers to develop new ideas to address the challenges that face us. We base our approach on innovation, decentralisation and local initiative, supported from the centre but with an increasing emphasis on local delivery.

Earlier, Mr McConnell suggested that the Conservatives would centralise everything and pull power back to the centre. At the time, I asked whether he was prepared to move away from ring fencing and the control from the centre that that allows. Is the minister suggesting that schools will be given the flexibility to deal with issues locally, within the schools themselves?

We want decentralised decision making in our schools and we do not think that that can be achieved by a centralised model that involves getting rid of our local education authorities. The Conservatives would take more and more power to the centre; we want the opposite of that. We want to take new approaches, such as the new community schools, and we want new approaches on alternatives to exclusion. Many of the initiatives on diversity that Brian Monteith highlighted have been promoted by the Executive, not the Conservatives. We welcome innovation and creativity.

In order to accommodate those developments, will the minister concede that, given the long list that Ian Jenkins produced of things that teachers would love to do given the time, issues of work load still need to be addressed?

Many issues still need to be addressed and, as has been said time and again, we are with the McCrone settlement only starting to address some of the big issues. That settlement, however, provides a huge foundation on which we can build. We want the Scottish education framework to be developed and we do not want it to be rigid. We do not support senseless, centralised targets. The Executive will work not only with schools and education authorities—with which we are keen to continue to develop links—but with teachers.

Statistics should not become what Ian Jenkins calls meaningless soundbites. Masses of information can become meaningless if it cannot be used to improve education and to help teachers. Good information, however, is and will remain vital to allow both managers and front-line teachers to do their jobs well. In case the message has not got through, I can announce now the formal abolition of all league tables in Scotland. If they ever existed for schools, they no longer exist now.

I am delighted to hear the minister announcing the abolition of league tables. I come from part of East Dunbartonshire where our schools always used to top the league tables. I draw the minister's attention to the part of the HMI report on the education functions of local authorities that deals with East Dunbartonshire Council and ask him to comment on the performance targets that the council has failed to meet. The report said that no aspects were found to be very good, that no aspects were found to be good and that three aspects were found to be unsatisfactory. That tells the minister why he has had to abolish league tables. We used to appear at the top of them; we are now at the bottom.

We are all concerned about the findings of that HMI report. Jack McConnell announced yesterday that we would be meeting representatives of the local authority shortly to discuss how to turn the situation in East Dunbartonshire around and how to follow up the situation, given that a HMI progress report is due in the next 12 months.

All of us in the Parliament are determined to work together to rebuild, to restore confidence in and to re-establish Scotland's international reputation for the quality of its schools system. That must be our focus over the coming months; it is certainly the focus of the Executive. In contrast, as Ian Jenkins pointed out, Mike Russell seems to be increasingly obsessed by what is going on at Westminster. What we care about is what is happening here and the solutions that are right for Scotland's schools.

I utterly reject the philosophy that is coming from Tony Blair—with the approval of Brian Monteith, God help us. That philosophy says that there should be privatisation and selection in schools. We need only clear that off now and we will not discuss it again.

I want to build a consensus around what is right for Scotland's schools. Increasingly, we are achieving that. Let us never forget the Tories and the damaging political dogma that they brought to Scotland's schools over two decades, with confrontation, conflict and all the other cons that sum up Conservatism in relation to education. On the current Conservative approach, let me quote David McLetchie, the Conservative leader, who I am pleased to see has joined us again in the chamber. In 1999, he said:

"Yesterday Parliament passed a motion redirecting £80 million to education—that was the price of the Lib-Lab coalition. That £80 million should have been used for 500 more police officers, so that we do not lay off 400 prison officers or close two prisons".—[Official Report, 25 November 1999; Vol 3, c 968.]

That sums up the Conservative approach to education. It is still destructive and dogmatic and would still involve cuts.

Will the minister give way?

No, I am in my final minute.

I want an education system that gives priority to building and developing new initiatives; to widening nursery provision for three-year-olds; to reducing primary school class sizes; to supporting investment in new classroom assistants; to supporting new initiatives such as the exclusions initiative and the discipline initiative; to making improvements to the SQA and the exam system; to reducing bureaucracy; and to introducing changes to HMI.

That is a long list of initiatives for the Scottish education system. It includes more investment in books and equipment—yes, Mr McLetchie,

£80 million more investment in our schools. There is more investment in repairs and refurbishment. Perhaps most important of all, investment has been made for 3,500 more support staff and 4,000 more school teachers in the coming years. I support Jack McConnell's amendment and ask the whole Parliament to join me in doing so.

This has been a useful debate and I thank all those who have contributed to it, even if some of the contributions have been less useful than others. Some speeches have seemed to focus on an entirely separate agenda, almost without any reference to the terms of the SNP's motion.

The overwhelming vote by teachers to accept the generous pay and conditions offer based on the recommendations of Professor McCrone has rightly been welcomed by everyone who wants an end to a decade of wrangling. The debate confirmed that those sentiments are shared by the majority of members. The increase in pay, the relief from bureaucracy, the greater support that will be given to probationer teachers and the wind-down scheme for those who want to retire will all make a positive contribution.

There is now an opportunity for stability in Scotland's schools and for a period of co-operation and consultation with all parties, which could lead to positive developments in Scotland's education system. However, that is only a beginning. The Scottish Executive has a responsibility to ensure that the terms of the McCrone settlement are properly implemented and that the benefits to our education system are maintained.

It was disappointing that no Labour member was willing or able to denounce the Prime Minister's proposals for selection and the privatisation of education, but others have not been so reticent. The former Labour deputy leader, Roy Hattersley, said that the proposals in effect reintroduced selective education. He said:

"This is a return to selection with all the problems involved for the schools that are perceived to be at the bottom of the heap. All the emphasis is going to be on the 46 per cent of specialist schools.

And the non-specialist schools are going to be regarded as second-rate . . . I hope the teachers struggling away in inner city schools, who heard what he said . . . react accordingly . . . it is immensely damaging".

Will the member give way?

No.

The Executive needs to allay anxiety among our teachers and parents and make it clear that such policies have no place in Scotland. We want an absolute assurance that those policies will not find their way into Scotland. We have not had such an assurance.

It is the SNP's view that certain fundamentals of the current education system need to be challenged to create a truly inclusive system that is child centred. The minister and the Executive have confirmed that bureaucracy must be reduced. Today, we have suggested that there are practical ways in which that can be achieved that have the added benefit of being educationally sound. For example, there is no research to prove that league tables, which were invented by the Tories supposedly to allow parents to choose between schools, have achieved anything during the 12 years of their existence. I am delighted to hear that they will no longer exist.

Michael Russell cited one expert, and I will quote the words of another. In an article in the journal New Economy, the UK's leading education statistician Professor Harvey Goldstein wrote that

"educational institutions . . . have a responsibility for encouraging learning across a much wider range of areas than can be reasonably tested. Any judgement based upon the measurement of only a partial set of features has to be recognised as incomplete. Schools may be differentially effective—and so a crude average doesn't sum up what they do."

Attainment is influenced by many things, including social factors, such as gender, ethnicity, rural or urban settings, but neither league tables nor the current targets take those factors into account.

I do not want to spoil Irene McGugan's summing up completely, but we have now listened to Mike Russell and her for a total of 20 minutes and I would like her to finish the debate with at least one proposal that might improve standards and excellence in Scottish education.

I will give an example from Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment is moving forward in this area. The council carried out a consultation exercise that proved conclusively that the majority of respondents were opposed to the publication of league tables. Therefore, they were abolished.

Will the member give way?

I know what Mike Rumbles would say, so I will answer him now. In place of league tables, the council has favoured allowing schools to provide information directly to parents and others. I do not know how much clearer we could make this: schools can give parents a rounded picture of the school and both the curricular and the extra-curricular provision on offer and they can set the examination performance in context. Parents would have all the material that they wanted from a single source. That would avoid all the additional pressures created by the press, which publishes that information in league table format.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, thank you.

I am sure that the minister does not need reminding about section 2 of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000, which states that schools are about more than simply learning academic skills. Such skills are important, but other factors must be taken into account. Education must be directed to developing every child's potential to the full. To fulfil the potential of that Scottish Parliament act, the policy of target setting must be reassessed.

Education must be centred around the child, not the targets. The current method of target setting takes the focus from the child—the child is not at the centre of target-setting processes. To develop the child's potential to the full, elements such as play, sport and art need to be included. Those elements are often squeezed out in the pressure to attain targets.

The Educational Institute of Scotland's report says that targets

"do not have any of the features identified . . . as good practice".

The targets are

"based on outdated and inadequate methods of comparing and measuring school performance".

Most members will probably not have seen or be aware of the convoluted calculations that are required to estimate targets. I have a copy of an example, which is proof—if that were needed—that teachers' time is wasted. [Laughter.] Members may laugh, but have they seen the method of calculation?

The example shows how to calculate provisional writing targets in primary schools for a school in which 25 per cent of pupils are entitled to free school meals. What that has to do with targets in writing, the example does not specify.

Will the member give way?

No.

First of all, the school has to determine the number of pupils in primaries 3, 4, 6 and 7 to have achieved passes at levels A, B, C and D respectively. The school must then calculate what percentage of the number of pupils on the roll that is. If the starting value is higher than 70 per cent, 5 percentage points are added and that is the matter finished. However, if the starting value is lower than 70 per cent, the school must work out the gap between the starting value and 80 per cent. So the calculation is: 80 per cent, minus the starting value, divided by two. Then schools are instructed to

"go to table 3 in annex C. Look up the value . . . exceeded by one third of the schools with similar rates of FME to your own school and enter it here."

Honestly—and that is just one example.

Within such calculations, there is no means of measuring the non-academic goals, such as self-esteem and pupil participation, that were mentioned by others during the debate. However, evidence from the Scottish Council Foundation—a source commended by David Mundell—confirms that employers are increasingly placing a premium on skills such as teamwork, asking the right questions, coping with uncertainty, and emotional intelligence. The existing educational targets totally disregard those skills.

The EIS's "Manifesto for a New Parliament" stated that:

"The new Scottish Parliament must:

• do all it can to provide the means for schools to improve quality, but it should review fundamentally whether Target Setting and comparisons of schools, however sophisticated, are the best way of achieving this."

The centre for educational research and innovation says:

"Testing is seen by teachers in many countries as a regrettable necessity which damages good learning and inhibits work".

I will give one more example—from Norway, not Finland. Norway concludes that external tests exert pressure on schools to set students according to ability only. Such tests are ruled out because they would conflict with the schools' responsibility to promote social integration. I hope that we will mirror that approach in Scotland. There should be a consensus that the burden of all that assessment should be reduced, which would be less intrusive for teachers and better for pupils.

The SNP is committed to ensuring that the school curriculum will properly prepare our young people for the challenges that lie ahead for them. We deplore the emphasis on assessment and targets that new Labour is pursuing and that detract from meaningful education. We are committed to opting out of leagues, as they destroy all that is best in Scottish education.