The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-3278, in the name of Peter Peacock, on quality teachers for the 21 ^st century.

I have been looking forward greatly to this debate, as we have a great story to tell about Scottish education and the part that teachers play in developing our education system. I will be relentlessly upbeat in my speech and leave it to the Opposition parties to adopt their usual disposition of carping and trying to find inadequacies in the system. I note, from their amendments, that they are struggling to find an alternative agenda to that which the Executive is pursuing.

Despite what the detractors of our education system sometimes say, Scotland has one of the top-performing education systems in the world. It is a strong system that is getting even stronger as a result of the actions that we are taking. All the key international evidence shows that. Our 15-year-olds—even those who were included in the recently published Timms study, who were behind at primary 5 and secondary 2—are performing among the best in the world. Indeed, the programme for international student assessment study shows that there are only three countries in the world, in the different categories that are measured, that significantly outperform Scotland.

The minister said that he would be upbeat throughout the debate. Can he tell me, in an upbeat way, why the number of pupils who are leaving school after 12 years with no qualifications is still 3,000?

What Brian Monteith does not say is that that number is declining because of the way in which our policies are impacting.

Despite the strength of our education system—which the Tories seek to deny—our ambition is to ensure that it is even stronger in the future by tackling the challenges that we face, including those in our science curriculum and science education in our schools. That is why we have launched the most comprehensive reform programme for a generation in education, setting new standards and expectations in our system; giving teachers and schools more freedom to do what is right, by giving them more choice and flexibility; and, in particular, giving pupils more choice about what they study, what exams they sit and when they sit them.

We are embracing investments in new leadership and in our schools, as well as the new inspection standards that are now rolling out, in a major curriculum reform that will buy the flexibility and choice that we are looking for. We are opening up for our students new vocational options and new links to colleges to help them to move forward. That is to name but a few elements of our strategy, which is designed to make our system stronger.

What stage has the curriculum redevelopment plan reached? Is there still an opportunity to introduce new concepts?

Absolutely; there is still that opportunity. The plan is at a comparatively early stage. It is designed to be a highly participative process to enable teachers to redesign the curriculum within the framework that we set—that will not be done by civil servants. Websites and information are available to allow teachers to participate in that process.

Governments can do a lot to improve educational standards. We can set high expectations, bring to bear new resources, change policies and enact legislation, and open up more choice for our young people. However, only teachers can teach. They are the experts in education, day by day, and they make a difference in what they do in their schools and in the relationships that they build with their pupils. That is why more investment in our teachers is crucial to further developing our education system.

In 1997, following the dark years of Tory rule in this country and the neglect of our teaching profession, our teachers felt embittered, embattled, hard done to, and done down. Their pay had fallen behind that of their close comparators. The millennium negotiations subsequently broke down. Teachers felt a lack of respect or status in their community, which is why we set about systematically changing that. The McCrone inquiry, which gave rise to the 2001 pay agreement, "A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century", was instituted. That agreement has brought better pay for our teachers and reform to their conditions of service.

More time is now available to teachers for preparation and marking, and there is less class contact time. There are thousands more support staff in our schools, who free up our teachers to teach in the way they want. There are new contractual commitments to continuing professional development. Scotland now leads the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in commitment to CPD, showing more commitment than any other country in that group.

Will the minister give way?

I will finish these points, then I will happily give way.

Teachers have more time and wider opportunities than before for continuing professional development. Our effort in continuing professional development is co-ordinated nationally. Those are truly radical changes.

In addition, there are radical changes in how we induct new teachers into the profession and reduce class contact for them in their first year. They have more time for receiving properly provided mentor support in their schools. Scotland leads the world in the field of teacher induction.

The minister says that Scotland leads the world and the OECD. Did he not read the recent OECD report about attainment in mathematics and science, in which Scotland was below the OECD average in both subjects?

Dennis Canavan must have misheard what I said. I made it very clear that when our young people reach the age of 15, they are among the best in the world. In that other narrower study, even those who were behind at P5 and S2 were ahead of those in every country in the world bar three by the time that they were 15. We should recognise and celebrate that fact.

We are doing other things. We have developed a chartered teacher programme, for which 100 teachers have now qualified; 2,000-plus are on their way to qualifying. That will allow teachers to stay in the classroom to practise their craft while receiving the financial rewards that they require for that. The SNP's amendment mentions that it would like to fund that programme more appropriately. I hope that, under the SNP's new procedures, that funding commitment has been agreed by John Swinney.

In the past year, we have concluded a four-year pay deal with our teachers that will give us unprecedented stability in our classrooms and the time to move forward with other changes in the system.

The Headteachers Association of Scotland issued a document today from which I will read briefly. It lists issues of concern and goes on:

"Staff morale in secondary schools has been affected by the job sizing exercise, which has resulted in many senior and middle managers effectively being told they are overpaid for the work they do."

Is that the satisfaction that the minister has just been boasting about?

That typifies the approach of Opposition members. They try to find little points to nitpick and use them to portray a wholly false picture of Scottish education. I will explain why.

The radical and dramatic changes that we are making to our teachers' conditions—all our reform milestones have been met—are changing teachers' perceptions and people's desire to teach and bringing real changes and results to our system. As a result of all those changes, teaching is more attractive than it has ever been. More people want to become teachers in Scotland, despite the bleak picture that the Tories try to paint. For every one person whom we accept for the one year graduate teacher-training course, we reject two people who want to teach so that we keep standards high. In our BEd courses, we reject 11 people for every one whom we take. People want to come into teaching.

There are more mature entrants into teaching, which is a thoroughly good thing. In the past decade, the average age for trainee teachers at Jordanhill has been 30. Those new people are coming to teaching with wider life experience and making a difference to the teaching profession and to our schools.

Is the minister satisfied that recruitment levels will ensure that there is no shortfall in the gap that will follow the early retirement of many of our teachers?

I am just coming to that. If Margaret Ewing waits for a moment, she will hear all the evidence that I will give on that matter.

As I said, more teachers want to come into the profession, which is a thoroughly good thing. I ask Margaret Ewing to listen as I set out the facts in that regard. Three thousand probationer teachers came into our schools last month, which is 700 more than last year. Those teachers are going into our schools across Scotland. The number of probationers who are coming into our schools is substantially in advance of the number of vacancies that existed; the Conservative's amendment raises that point. In the past few weeks, I have met more than 500 of the new probationers. They are thoroughly inspiring people, who will make a big difference to our teaching profession.

We have recruited 312 maths teachers in the past three years, which is an increase of more than 110 per cent since 2002-03. We have recruited 377 new English teachers, which is a 143 per cent increase since 2002-03. There has been a staggering 274 per cent increase in the number of chemistry teachers since 2002-03. There has been an 863 per cent increase in the number of physical education teachers who have been recruited since 2002-03—I hope that that will please Margo MacDonald.

Will the minister give way?

I am running out of time, but I will give way.

Are the PE teachers who have been recruited specialist PE teachers, or do they teach PE and other subjects?

We have recruited the increased number of teachers that I mentioned, but we will also give primary teachers the opportunity to gain new qualifications in PE teaching. We will then replace such primary teachers with other primary teachers. We are not asking teachers to do additional work. We are finding a new breed of teachers to help take forward our commitments.

Beyond that, the General Teaching Council for Scotland is registering an increasing number of teachers who are from outwith Scotland. There has been a 180 per cent increase in the number of such teachers in the recent past.

Will the minister give way?

I am afraid that I am running out of time, so I cannot give way.

There has been a 200 per cent increase in the number of maths teachers who are being recruited from outwith Scotland and registering with the GTC. There have been similar increases in the numbers of such teachers for English and PE. Such dramatic increases, along with falling school rolls, will allow us to cut class sizes as we have never done before. The increases have come from recruiting teachers from outwith Scotland as well as from recruiting home-grown teachers. That approach is consistent with our fresh talent initiative.

We are well on the way to meeting each and every one of the targets that we have set for reducing class sizes. One of the reasons that we can do that—this picks up on a point that both Opposition parties make in their amendments—is that we now have sophisticated workforce planning exercises. That means that we know, for example, about teachers' retiral rates and the age profile of our teaching profession. Just as I and members on the Opposition front benches get older every year, so do teachers. That is why we have the workforce planning exercises and why we are buying places in our universities to train people and to ensure that we fill any gaps and cut class sizes.

Teachers will have more freedom to operate than ever before. The abolition of our age-and-stage regulations, the reforms to the Schools (Scotland) Code 1956 and the curriculum reforms that we are undertaking will ensure that that will happen. More support for continuing professional development and the provision of more classroom assistants will help to meet the higher standards and expectations that we are setting for our system. When teachers do not meet the standards, changed procedures will allow them to move on to other careers. However, the vast majority of our teachers deserve our praise, our respect and our admiration for what they do. We must invest more in such teachers.

The Opposition parties will undoubtedly try to cast a shadow over the debate, but we will get on with the business of making an already strong education system in Scotland even stronger by putting quality teachers for the 21^st century at the heart of all that we do.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the significant investments made by the Scottish Executive in developing the capabilities and professionalism of teachers in Scotland; notes the increase in teacher recruitment and the delivery of improved initial teacher education; welcomes the implementation of radically improved teacher induction arrangements; acknowledges the widening of opportunities and improved quality of Continuing Professional Development for teachers and the development of chartered teacher programmes; recognises the importance of teaching standards in delivering higher educational attainment, and welcomes the Executive's commitment to secure quality teachers for the 21st century.

Adam Ingram will speak to and move amendment S2M-3278.2. You have seven minutes, Mr Ingram.

I welcome today's debate, which focuses on the teaching profession's crucial role for the future of our country. We have always been fortunate to have a teaching workforce that is second to none in terms of professional standards and commitment and which maintains the first-class reputation of the Scottish education system. The Education Committee's recent pupil motivation inquiry clearly demonstrated to us that the teacher makes the difference in motivating pupils and engaging them in the learning process. We can be as upbeat as the minister in our appreciation of teaching in Scotland.

That said, the profession and those who are responsible for education, not least the minister, face key challenges to ensure world-class status for the education service. I was rather concerned that the minister glossed over some of those challenges in his speech.

The first and most obvious challenge is the renewal of the profession. We know that around 40 per cent of Scottish teachers are due to retire in the next 10 years. That, coupled with an Executive target of 53,000 teachers by 2007 and planned reductions in class sizes for English and mathematics in the first two years of secondary school, means that there is an obvious pressure to recruit many more teachers that we do at present. It has been said that all the indications so far suggest that the Executive is struggling to meet those targets.

Earlier this week, The Herald highlighted a worrying failure to recruit enough new maths teachers. The three biggest teacher training colleges, which were expected to recruit an extra 248 future maths teachers, have in fact recruited only 198. That is 20 per cent off target, minister. Figures also show that the number of maths teachers has fallen by 18 per cent since 1998 and that 70 per cent of Scottish schools were reporting shortages of maths teachers to the point that maths lessons were being cancelled.

Mr Ingram mentions 1998, but does he accept that the way in which the figures are calculated has changed and that the trend in the numbers, both before and after the change, has been up?

Yes—and we have heard stories before about statistics, damned lies and all the rest of it. The fact is that we are facing a reduction in the number of maths teachers.

Far from the achievement of a class-size reduction in S1 and S2 maths from 33 to 20, we are much more likely to see an increase in part-time education and an increase in class sizes. More needs to be done to make teaching more attractive to maths graduates. The recruitment crisis in maths is perhaps the most noticeable, but other subject areas are also affected. MSPs will no doubt be aware of the briefing from the Royal Society of Chemistry, which said that one in five schools is already turning away pupils from studying chemistry because of the lack of teachers. That situation will not get any easier with one third of chemistry teachers due to retire in the next five years.

In my speech, I said that chemistry recruitment is up by 274 per cent. We will fill all the vacancies and add to the number of teachers in total. Mr Ingram is perfectly entitled to make his comments on recruitment at universities, an area in which we have set targets. Universities have made spectacular progress in recruiting additional maths and English teachers in particular. That is only part of our strategy. Does Mr Ingram accept that there are other dimensions to our strategy, including attracting teachers from other parts of the world to come to Scotland, and introducing other flexibilities to the system to allow us to meet our targets?

I hear what the minister is saying, but he has tended to play down the difficulties and resort to a kind of spin. I would be much more confident if the minister took on the difficulties head on. I am not advocating that teacher remuneration should be looked at again; I think that the minister has done a reasonable job on that front. The pay package is not the fundamental problem. What is needed is a culture change and an enhancement of the status of the profession.

Matthew MacIver, the chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland, said in evidence to the Education Committee earlier this year that it is time that teachers in Scotland took control of their own professional destiny. In a letter he said:

"For the last 20 years we have not been trusted as a profession."

He meant by the politicians. He continued:

"We have moved from being a 'high trust, low accountability' profession to the very opposite, ie a 'low trust, high accountability' profession."

Teachers will tell us that their preoccupation with endless initiatives and the constant analysis of every action in the classroom; the marketing climate that means that schools set huge store on creating profile; and the overload of unnecessary administration that bears down on teachers are all factors that impact negatively on potential new recruits. Public perceptions of indiscipline in schools and of teachers having become disempowered in the classroom must also have had the effect of reducing recruitment.

On the issue of ill-discipline in schools, does the SNP support our view that headmasters should have the right to exclude violent and disruptive pupils?

Head teachers already have such a right.

You have one minute.

Time is pressing, so I must move on.

Without a doubt, the factors that I mentioned have worked against the retention of teachers in the system. Each year, nearly 30,000 people register with the GTC as qualified teachers but do not then seek employment.

The second challenge is to maintain a world-class education service by maintaining and increasing standards of qualification and in-service training. It would be a mistake to respond to a recruitment crisis by lowering the threshold for entry to teaching service. We must surely resist the temptation of following the English model by employing non-qualified staff as teachers.

The introduction of the chartered teacher programme is to be welcomed, not least because it allows teachers to take control of meeting their professional development needs. However, the disappointingly low uptake of the course is surely due to the costs involved and to the inflexible access arrangements for individual teachers. As Matthew MacIver pointed out to us, why must aspiring chartered teachers be required to pay substantial amounts of money to achieve that status whereas aspiring head teachers are not?

Mr Ingram, you must wind up.

As the Presiding Officer has asked me to come to a conclusion—

Not asked but instructed.

The minister could, and should, do much more to support our teachers. I commend to the Parliament the amendment in my name.

I move amendment S2M-3278.2, to leave out from "the significant" to end and insert:

"that Scottish teachers are the key drivers for excellence in our education system; further recognises that there will be a continuing need for significant investment in teacher recruitment and induction, initial teacher education and continuous professional development; notes the challenging nature of the Scottish Executive's pledge to increase teacher numbers to 53,000 by 2007, given that 40% of Scottish teachers are due to retire in the next 10 years; is concerned that the recruitment of mathematics teachers is falling behind targets, threatening promised class-size reductions; commends the work of the General Teaching Council for Scotland in developing quality teaching, and calls on the Executive to fully fund the initial part of the chartered teacher programme for all Scottish teachers".

I am glad to follow Adam Ingram in expressing my unqualified admiration for Scotland's teachers, who provide crucial and essential services for our children and the nation. They deserve our good will, good wishes and strongest support. Indeed, parliamentarians should act as dedicated friends of teachers, not as candid friends. As Canning said of the Houses of Parliament:

"But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,

Save me, oh, save me, from the candid friend."

We are here as friends, not candid friends, of teachers, for it is teachers—including, at one time, the Deputy Presiding Officer—who provide Scotland's children with foundations for learning that will stand them in good stead for life. We recognise that teachers play a vital role, along with parents and family, in influencing, enthusing and inspiring young people to great endeavour. As Adam Ingram stated, teachers play the key role in the teaching process.

It is crucial that teachers are given adequate training and practical experience before entering the profession so that they are well equipped with the skills that they will need. Although initial teacher education and continuing professional development are extremely important in ensuring that teachers keep up with new teaching methods and assessment techniques, teachers may not always be able to bring their training to bear fully within the classroom, owing to the need to deal with too much pernickety paperwork. Any moves in the direction of simplifying their workload will be welcome.

Despite the increasing number of new teachers entering the profession, 1,164 teacher vacancies were advertised in February 2005—up from 790 vacancies in 2004. More than 300 posts have been vacant for more than three months, so many of our young people are being left with no permanent teacher. The Headteachers Association of Scotland's "Parliamentary Bulletin 6" highlights seven issues of concern, but let me mention just one. The bulletin states:

"Vacant promoted posts are now attracting few candidates and senior staff are concerned at the quality of those who do apply. The workload associated with a slimmed down management structure is acting as a serious disincentive for teachers."

The bulletin makes this request:

"HAS would welcome the opportunity to be involved in a review of both management structures and job sizing, to allow schools to move forward on the improvement agenda in an equitable and sustainable manner, to ensure further benefit to young people."

When the minister winds up, it would be helpful if he would say whether he will give sympathetic consideration to that request.

With 40 per cent of teachers due to retire in the next 10 years, the Executive needs to treat with urgency the issue of teacher retention. Surely everything possible should be done to ensure that conditions are conducive to teachers staying in the profession—one way of doing that would be to reduce unnecessary form-filling.

The chartered teacher initiative is very welcome. However, of the 20,000 teachers who meet the criteria by having reached the top of the unpromoted pay scale, only 2,500 have embarked on the programme. As of March this year, only 161 teachers had successfully completed the course. I ask the minister whether consideration—

Will the member give way?

Provided that the minister answers my question, I will be only too happy to do so.

Does Lord James Douglas-Hamilton appreciate that the initiative came into force only in 2003? Is he aware of the large number of teachers who are going through the system at the moment?

I welcome that, but concerns have been expressed that take-up is not strong enough.

My question to the minister, which I hope that he will answer when he winds up, is whether consideration can be given to making the initiative more attractive. Teachers are expected to pay £7,500 to attend the courses; that sum is about one quarter of the annual salary for a top-level unpromoted teacher. Is it fair that they should have to do so, especially when one considers the irony of head teachers, who are on far higher salary scales, paying nothing to undertake the Scottish qualification for headship. The financial disincentives for those who want to become a chartered teacher are substantial. However, as the minister said, the merits of the initiative are great.

Will the member take an intervention?

I have very limited time. Perhaps the member will shortly be able to make clear her views on the subject.

I welcome the review of initial teacher education, but students are concerned that that does not equip them well to handle the immediate demands of the workplace. It will be increasingly important for new teachers to be provided with adequate training in classroom management techniques.

In a recent speech, the Prime Minister said:

"let's be brutally honest here", the solution

"is to escape the straitjacket of the traditional comprehensive school and embrace the idea of genuinely independent non-fee paying state schools. It is to break down the barriers to new providers, to schools associating with outside sponsors, to the ability to start and expand schools; and to give parental choice its proper place."

I am not the Prime Minister's press officer, but I agree strongly with his assessment in this connection. He advocates that parental choice should be given its proper place, but it appears that the Executive's plans fall some way short of the Prime Minister's aims.

The Conservatives want parents and schools to have greater flexibility and control over education. We want head teachers to have more say over budgets and staff, thereby reducing the burden of bureaucracy, making it easier for popular schools to expand and for new schools to open.

We wish parental preference to shape the way in which education works. We pin our colours to the mast of standards, choice and opportunity. In that spirit, we wish Scotland's teachers as they continue in the pursuit of educational excellence the best of good fortune, which they so strongly deserve.

I move amendment S2M-3278.1, to leave out from first "welcomes" to end and insert:

"while recognising with concern the increasing number of teaching posts vacant for more than three months, welcomes the implementation of radically improved teacher induction arrangements; acknowledges the widening of opportunities and improved quality of Continuing Professional Development for teachers and the development of chartered teacher programmes, but notes the low uptake of these programmes among teachers; recognises the importance of teaching standards in delivering higher educational attainment, and welcomes the Executive's commitment to secure quality teachers for the 21st century but notes that, with 40% of teachers due to retire within 10 years, the issue of teacher retention must be addressed with some urgency."

As a new boy to the Education Committee, on which I have just taken over as convener, I do not make claims to be an expert on the topic. However, I hope that that expertise will develop over time.

For Liberal Democrats, education is a central plank in our ambitions and programmes, as has been the case for some years. In fact, enshrined in our constitution is a statement that no one should be enslaved by poverty or ignorance. Education is central to our aim of ensuring that everyone can achieve their full potential. In that spirit of equality of opportunity, I speak in the debate about some of the Liberal Democrats' achievements in the Parliament to date. As a partnership Government in Scotland, we have driven forward the education agenda and taken things forward in a way that is the envy of other parts of the United Kingdom.

I echo some of Adam Ingram's analysis, although I do not agree that the Executive has not begun to address the issues that he raised. I refer in particular to the interference of politicians in teaching. The danger for politicians is that we tend to think that we know about education—most of us have been to school at some point—but that is not necessarily the case. As politicians, we should not go telling teachers how to teach any more than we would tell an airline pilot how to fly a plane or a brain surgeon how to conduct an operation.

Sam Galbraith could do that.

I am sure that he could; he has the expertise.

Our job as politicians is not to do that but to set the parameters to drive forward the ambitions of our schools and our children. Our job is to provide resources and to ensure that there is effective accountability through proper inspections that assist teachers and schools to develop and improve. Inspections should not be seen as a threat. We should avoid language such as the term "failing schools", which is used south of the border.

Our job is to let teachers get on with their job.

No one seems to recognise that people are living longer. It is illogical that a teacher of 60 who has a third of her adult life still in front of her is compulsorily retired. Surely, teachers should be encouraged to continue working if they wish to do so. They could be encouraged to work part time, for example, to alleviate the present teaching situation.

Perhaps the minister will cover that when he winds up, but my understanding is that the retirement age of teachers, as of all public professionals, is being looked at. I do not think that compulsory retirement is appropriate. However, I do not know many teachers who are not looking forward to retiring when they reach the age of 60, to be perfectly frank.

Does the member share my concern about reports of teachers in Glasgow who want to wind down under the recommendations of the McCrone report but are being asked, in the very last years of their teaching life, to move schools in order to take advantage of the winding-down scheme so that they can retire before 60?

I am afraid that I am not aware of the details of what is happening in Glasgow, so I cannot answer that question. Perhaps the minister will answer it; I am sure that he, as a member for Glasgow, has more knowledge of what is going on there than I do.

Teachers must be allowed to get on with their jobs. That is why much of the reform of education in Scotland concerns freeing up teachers to allow them to get on with the job of teaching. The curriculum reform, for example, is not just about improving the curriculum; it is also about decluttering it to ensure that teachers have time to give adequate instruction to pupils. It also deals with the important curriculum from S1 to S3.

We are getting rid of unnecessary testing at various levels, which simply adds bureaucracy. Teachers are there to teach; they are not there to be statisticians. It is important that we do that. Equally important is that we are developing the teaching profession and giving it the respect to which Adam Ingram so rightly referred.

We are doing that through the moves towards continuing professional development. It is essential to ensure that teachers are respected and supported throughout their career through the developments in the initial teacher education programmes. I welcome the minister's positive response to the review group's study, particularly on ways of widening the alternative modes of delivery of initial teacher education so that more people will consider a career in education. Developments such as distance learning and moving away from the traditional one-year full-time residential course that most teachers have to do will help in that process.

Those are important steps forward. However, most important is the target. We in Scotland are not using falling school rolls to cut education budgets and to reduce the number of teachers. We consider falling school rolls to be an opportunity to cut class sizes and to improve education. That is a very important initiative that we in Scotland have undertaken. The number of school-based teachers has increased to 51,287, and our target—at a time when school rolls are falling—is to raise that number to 53,000 by 2007. The important message is that we are trying to improve the quality of education.

The biggest improvement that we can make to school discipline in Scotland is to reduce class sizes to those of most other countries. Reducing class sizes will do more to improve discipline than giving head teachers additional powers, as Brian Monteith suggested.

There is a very positive message for Scottish education. The Liberal Democrat and Labour Executive is committed to improving our education system. We are all committed to improving our education system. Therefore, let us support the motion.

As my colleagues in the chamber know, I have something of a tradition of speaking late in debates and using my time to contrast the Executive's proposals with those of the Opposition. However, as the minister suggested in his opening remarks, I would have some difficulty today if I wanted to focus on the Opposition's distinctive policies for teaching and teachers. Like other members, I have searched in vain for those policies. However, in fairness to the Opposition parties, the not ungracious tone of their amendments reflects that reality. Faced with that dilemma, I decided to go back to first principles and to dwell briefly on what we have learned in recent years about how we learn best.

We live in a world of growing information overload. That will only continue, so how we learn has become the subject of ever more interest not only among teachers, but among psychologists, economists and specialists of all sorts. From the economics world, the pre-eminent expert in how we learn is the Nobel laureate James Heckman who, as some members will know, visited Scotland last year under the auspices of the Allander series of lectures. His central insight about how we learn is that our most important teachers in our earliest years of life are our families, which of course accounts for the emphasis on pre-fives. When he turns to what matters most in the school years, his central insight about success in life is that it depends on more than one's IQ. Just as important is the "I can" that consists of perseverance, dependability, consistency and social skills. When it comes to acquiring both the IQ and the "I can" of life, good teaching and personal mentoring matter most—they matter far more than anything else that we talk about in education policy, including class sizes, funding or buildings.

Faced with that empirical evidence, the Executive had a choice. It could have chosen to spend its time trying to distinguish between good teachers and less-good teachers. That would not have been a sensible approach when we need more teachers overall. The other road—the one that the Executive deserves credit for taking—was to embark on an ambitious programme to raise quality all round.

I will illustrate that by inviting members to consider the difference between two pupils in Scotland, one of whom will sit their standard grades this year and one of whom is entering primary 1 this year. When today's 15-year-old went into primary 1, industrial relations were at an all-time low. Teachers' pay here had fallen far behind that of teachers in the rest of the United Kingdom, we had a recruitment crisis, morale was at rock bottom and threats of strikes were ever present.

I invite members to contrast that with the position of the new primary 1 pupil who arrived this autumn. Schools are benefiting from the most sustained period of good relations for more than 20 years, teachers have competitive salary levels and years of underinvestment have been turned around. If new primary 1 pupils have a brand new teacher, that teacher will have benefited from an induction scheme that is acclaimed throughout the world; no longer is anyone thrown in at the deep end. Throughout primary and secondary schools we are raising standards by ensuring that year in, year out each and every teacher participates in continuous professional development. That step alone will pay dividends for years to come.

Other members mentioned the chartered teacher programme, through which we are rewarding people who invest in their craft as teachers. As Robert Brown pointed out, the 10 per cent uptake in less than two years is a remarkable achievement. The programme is creating exactly the right incentive for our best teachers to teach. The Executive also deserves credit for investing in innovative leadership development opportunities for teachers. Time precludes me from talking about the Leadership Trust, Columba 1400 and a host of other programmes, but such work is on-going.

What is most encouraging is perhaps that, despite all that work, the Executive is not resting on its laurels, but is looking ahead to create teachers for a new era. The intention is to think about what the teacher of the future needs to be for our children. Teachers will need to be trained in how we learn. That is what I started with: How will our teachers in the future teach the "I can" as well as the IQ? By working with Scotland's teachers to develop that approach, the classroom practice of old will become a clinical internship for our youngest and newest teachers. Increasingly, we will cultivate our teachers' mentoring capabilities.

I thank the Executive for examining the evidence and for recognising that teaching makes a greater difference than perhaps anything else that we as politicians can influence when it comes to the school experience of our children. As a result, today's primary 1s will have a much more enjoyable passage through school than this year's standard grade pupils have had. For that, the Executive and Scotland's teachers deserve enormous credit.

It is interesting to follow Wendy Alexander, because she spoke about the Executive's inheritance. I remember the exact situation that we faced as Scottish parliamentarians when I was first elected to Parliament in 1974; there were strikes, the Labour Government would not address the serious issues that were being raised by the teaching unions and morale was low. I am sure that my colleague Dennis Canavan, who has been active in this sphere, agrees that a great deal of teachers' good will was lost then. Teachers no longer undertook voluntary work on Saturday mornings or in the evenings, which has been a continuing loss to sporting activities and other aspects of education. That should be borne in mind when we talk about teachers' progress.

I say to Peter Peacock that I have no intention of casting any kind of negative shadow over the debate. It is a long time since I was at the chalkface, but I have never regretted my years as a schoolteacher or forgotten the satisfaction that I gained from seeing pupils progress—those whom I taught in special needs and who overcame reading difficulties or those who gained good results in their O-grades and highers.

The important issue for teachers is to help to build their confidence in the work that they do. It is an honourable profession—some might even call it a vocation. However, it is a terrifying prospect for teachers when they are let loose on their own but are not sure what they will face. It is not just about measuring the paper results; it is about looking at pupils as individuals and having the time to notice when there are fluctuations in their performance. It is about having the time to talk to such pupils about the reasons for that and helping to find solutions.

Sometimes, we are guilty of loading additional responsibilities on to our teachers. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say, "It should start at school," whether applied to sex education, moral education, understanding physical and educational disabilities, learning good manners or, at primary 1 level, learning how to use a knife and fork. It is too easy and glib to say that things should start at school. Teachers are in loco parentis, but in many cases parents have abrogated their responsibilities. I was in that position from 9 until 4, five days a week, which is 40 hours. Now there is less emphasis on the role of parents, but they should be involved beyond the 40 hours when their offspring are at school.

I echo some of the points that have been made about bureaucracy. Instead of being able to use their time for preparatory work, teachers are filling in forms and reports, chasing money for much-needed teaching resources and worrying about league tables. That has resulted from some of the changes that have been introduced by the Executive—probably with the best of intentions. However, change for its own sake does not help the stability of our educational system.

I will talk briefly about teachers' role in discussions about future programmes in their localities. If we are to retain quality teachers, it is vital that they be involved in decisions about the schools to which they are committed. That is important to me because of what has happened in Moray, which was suddenly confronted with the possible closure or merging of 21 schools as a result of the school estates review that the Executive introduced. The area is well known to the minister, although his sortie into Moray as a candidate was not exactly 100 per cent successful. Throughout the process of so-called consultation, teachers telephoned, e-mailed and wrote to me privately, but they were not allowed to speak openly about the situation. The process took place despite the fact that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education had issued exceptionally good reports on the vast majority of the schools. The teachers had no direct right to make formal public representations although parents, children, MSPs and MPs could speak out. I am glad that Moray has dropped that programme—I see that the minister is nodding in agreement.

However, the concern is that the Executive has not yet adopted a presumption against the closure of schools in rural areas, which means that authorities are adopting a variety of policies. For example, Highland Council mothballs schools—indeed, one was reopened at the beginning of this term—because the movement of one family in or out can make a huge difference to what happens to rural schools. However, Moray Council still uses as the trigger point for closure a roll of 60 per cent of the capacity of the school. I am concerned about that, because many rural schools are magnets for people who wish to settle in our area. Moray is the constituency with the most inward immigration, because of the Royal Air Force. Many people wish to settle there and they see the importance of rural schools. We must ensure that teachers play a full role in such discussions, because they know the benefits of those schools.

In rising to speak from the back benches, I am pleased to support my colleagues in the debate. The minister's opening speech did nothing to undermine his reputation as the most partisan Labour minister in the Executive. I suspect that, as he once stood as an independent councillor and argued against Labour Party policies, he feels that he has to go the extra nine yards in proving his Labour credentials to us. The minister is from the year-zero school, which believes that the year of creation was the year of our Lord 1997, and that everything before then was utter darkness—a big Tory black hole. I am sorry, but the minister is a false prophet. There was good and bad before 1997 and there will be good and bad again. If we do not accept that there will be good and bad under politicians of any colour, we do the public a disservice.

I will not dwell on the past. I want to address matters that have been touched on and which are directly related to the performance of our brave new teachers; namely, who teaches the teachers, how they decide what to teach and to whom they are accountable. Real evidence exists that teachers are not being equipped with the appropriate skills to take full advantage of their enthusiasm and commitment.

A campaign has been launched to give Scottish pupils the chance to study for a new qualification in English language, to help their understanding of their native tongue and foreign languages. Last Friday, a meeting was held at the University of Edinburgh that was the first step towards introducing a higher in English language. The campaign is led by April McMahon, a professor of English language at the University of Edinburgh. She seeks to redress the balance between language and literature in the English curriculum, which is a balance that has needed to be corrected for some time.

Yet again this summer, we heard about how the use of phonics in teaching reading is to be encouraged; the First Minister endorsed that idea through a visit to a school. I welcome that endorsement because I have supported the use of phonics for some time, but such an endorsement and a statement that more phonics must be used beg the question: Who removed phonics from teaching?

Perhaps it was the person who introduced Cuisenaire rods to teach children how to count what red and green added up to.

I remember those rods well—they led me one day to become the finance spokesman of my party. Who can tell whether that means that they worked?

Is it not the case that much of the damage done to Scotland's educational reputation was visited upon it not by politicians—Tory politicians or Labour politicians—but by the very academics who were in charge and in control of our teacher training colleges? Those academics were apparently unaccountable to the parents of pupils, to the pupils, to the politicians who funded them or to the student teachers who went through the colleges. Some people put up a fight. I will quote from a professor at a university in Scotland. He states:

"I think what I found most depressing ... were the literature people who, in my view, have come to monopolise totally the English school classroom. Many of them are implacably opposed to language teaching for its own sake; in their world view, language can only be taught through literary texts; and their understanding of matters linguistic is usually abysmal. I fell out ... on many occasions with the Moray House language teacher trainers. ... I have to laugh quietly to myself when I read of the 'remarkable discovery' that teaching phonics improves early reading ability—hard not to say 'I told you so'.

Those are the words of an English professor who rails against the academics who would not listen to suggestions that there should be a variety of methods of teaching, but enforced the removal of phonics and thus condemned many of our pupils to a poorer ability to communicate. We cannot let the mistake of dropping phonics happen again—we must redress the balance and tackle the lack of accountability of our teacher-training colleges.

The question that I must put to the Executive is one that I have put to it before. Does the Executive really think that we yet have an educational system that is fit for purpose and that we yet have a common understanding of what that purpose could and should be? We hope to get a good result from the current consultation.

A famous educational philosopher, Howard Gardner, identified nine intelligences. Literacy and numeracy, which the Executive concentrates on almost to the exclusion of everything else, are only two of a range of intelligences that cover social and creative intelligences, all of which should be developed as fully as possible in our education system.

I attended the education and skills discussion at the recent business in the Parliament event. I suggested to the people who were present—they did not disagree—that what businesses really look for in their employees is confidence, adaptability, communication and learning skills, and the ability to assess risks and take risks. Businesses want their employees to have a full set of social skills. I have to wonder whether in any sense our education system is specifically designed to produce that outcome.

The Executive has received substantial recommendations from a number of bodies that call for more creative opportunities in our schools. Stories of amazing success are becoming legion. I need only bring to the Executive's attention the article in The Guardian on Tuesday about Sandwich Technology School. The school's isolated position in an area of high unemployment led to low self-esteem, low expectations and behaviour problems among most of its students, but the school was turned around within three years and became the fifth most improved school in the country, solely through engagement with a creative arts project that involved the entire school.

I cannot believe that, in the long term, the Executive will not respond to the compelling arguments for developing the full potential of all our young people. There are consequences now for training of our teachers. Before I synthesise those consequences, I wish to introduce a second issue in parallel. This is the United Nations decade of education for sustainable development. We face huge challenges over the next 40 years, and all our young people of all ages need to be eco-literate. That means that sustainability should permeate the design, management and curricula of our schools, as well as the training of our teachers.

The biggest challenge for teacher training will be to ensure that our primary school teachers are confident in teaching science. We hear that this year—like almost every other year that I can remember over the past 15 years—a worryingly high proportion of primary school teachers report that they are not comfortable explaining scientific issues to the children in their care.

Wendy Alexander spoke eloquently in her excellent speech about learning skills and about how people learn. She mentioned perseverance, dependability and social skills as being among the things that young people learn, or can learn, in and out of school. Learning for sustainability is not a subject, but an approach, whereby the principles of sustainability are embedded in a school's culture, ethos, management structure, learning, teaching and community links and in the management of its estate.

To prepare pupils to meet the challenges of the 21^st century and play their part in creating a just and sustainable world requires new skills and approaches from teachers. Sustainable development should become a core principle of initial teacher education, continuing professional development, the role of the chartered teacher and the qualification for headship. Sufficient support from the Executive is vital to ensure that local authorities, higher education institutions and even non-governmental organisations' programmes have the capacity to enable all Scotland's teachers to meet the challenge of sustainable development.

To return to my original thesis, the development of our young people's full potential in facing real challenges in real situations is one of the most effective ways of developing self-confidence and self-esteem. Wendy Alexander mentioned IQ and "I can", referring to perseverance, dependability and social skills. Outdoor education is accepted universally as being the best medium, so what consequence does that have for teacher training? It is quite simple: all our teacher training colleges should be able to give all their students access to two levels of qualification. First, they should all attain a level of competence in general outdoor education that would preferably include a summer mountain leadership certificate. The other level, for those who really wanted to do it, would require access to a full-time masters course—as is offered at Moray House under the expertise of Dr Peter Higgins—which would be designed to train full-time teachers of outdoor education. Much more access to expertise in teaching science, music and artistic and music skills should be available to primary school teachers.

I will conclude with a couple of questions for the minister. He missed out some sets of teachers in the figures that he gave earlier. I would dearly love to know what the figures are for the numbers of teachers—and whether they are going up or down—in art, music, drama and outdoor education. I suspect that the number for outdoor education might be very small indeed.

I am now over 65. If I had stayed in teaching until this year, my life expectancy would be another 18 months. That figure is as true here as it is in California. We cannot force teachers to stay on until they are 65 if they do not want to.

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate on quality teachers for the 21 ^st century. As a former member of the teaching profession, I appreciate the need to invest in the development of a teaching workforce that is able to meet the increased challenges of modern Scottish society.

My party's manifesto for the 2003 election made it clear that a Labour-led Executive would, quite correctly, continue the work that was undertaken in the Parliament's first four years of building a culture of confidence and aspiration in our schools in order to create, in short, a comprehensive education system in which every pupil has the opportunity to develop his or her innate abilities and in which no child is left behind. That is a worthy objective and it requires sufficient investment in the system to meet the growing and ever more sophisticated demands of a fast-moving society. Central to the achievement of such an aspiration is sufficient support for teachers and those who assist them in schools and communities in developing their professional skills to the fullest extent. Such development is necessary so that they are able fully to engage with pupils, which enables them to achieve their potential.

The reconstruction of our education system and the rebuilding of a positive relationship between Government and the teaching profession have not been easy. Members should not forget, and the general public should constantly be reminded of, the difficulties that were caused by 18 years of Tory underinvestment. I believe that the people of Scotland have not forgotten that during the benighted Tory years, teachers' pay, to which the minister referred, had fallen behind levels south of the border; there was undoubtedly a crisis in recruitment; there was an atmosphere of distrust between Government and teaching unions; and morale in the staffroom—this is absolutely true and authentic—was not high, to say the least. Teachers remained dedicated and committed, but the Tory Government gave them little recognition. The Tories should not and will not be forgiven for that.

I worked in the comprehensive system for 20 years, through those dismal Tory years, and I can testify to the verisimilitude of the picture that I have painted. I am pleased to say that I can also bear witness to the much-needed change that began to take place in the early days of devolution—the early days of this Parliament—and which continues apace. I will refer to certain elements of the transformation in the relationship between Government and the teaching profession in the remainder of my speech.

In my view, the 2001 agreement was absolutely vital. It allowed many necessary and overdue innovations to be set in train, such as the induction arrangements for new teachers. Margaret Ewing talked about the traumatic and perhaps even scary first day for a probationer teacher. I remember such an experience; I think that all of us who have been in the profession do. I welcome the induction arrangement scheme which, as the minister said, allows for less class-contact time and more mentoring, so that probationer teachers are supported through the difficult first years and can deliver effectively for the children who are in their charge.

The agreement also provides for a coherent programme of continuing professional development amounting to 35 hours each week—or each year, rather; 35 hours a week would be a bit too much for any teacher. In a world that does not stand still, the need for supporting the development and maintenance of skills is recognised as being a fundamental component of any modern profession, teaching included. That is important and I welcome it.

Allied to that emphasis on professional development for every teacher is the introduction of the masters level chartered teacher programme, which allows experienced classroom teachers to remain in the classroom while being paid £7,000 per annum above the top of the main grade pay scale. I say to Lord James Douglas-Hamilton that I believe that that is a real incentive and that it is a sensible advance. No longer will teachers whose strength lies in the classroom and in engaging with pupils be lost to senior management, albeit that senior management is, of course, always an important although subsidiary component.

There are more than 100 chartered teachers at present, and more than 2,000 others are well on their way to achieving that status. That is because, as the deputy minister acknowledged earlier in the debate, the scheme started only in 2003. I welcome that.

Recruitment to teacher-training courses gives good cause for reasoned optimism and is not unconnected to the investment that has been made by Government since devolution in respect of salaries, terms and conditions and professional development and reward. In my subject—English—I note with pleasure that the number of secondary postgraduate certificate of education scheme entrants has doubled between 2002-03 and 2005-06.

Those are all serious indicators of significant progress. I believe that they are vital if we wish to create a Scotland that has a population that enjoys a sustainable and high standard of living within the framework of our robust and growing economy. Teachers who are valued and supported are instrumental in moulding our children and securing that future. The Executive's policies are not perfect, but they are beginning to shape the workforce. On that basis, I commend the Executive's motion and will support it tonight.

I agree with a lot of what Bill Butler has just said. The Liberal Democrats have played an important part in developing the education policies of the coalition partnership and, on the whole, there is a good story to tell. It is not by any means a perfect story and there are still a lot of things that need to be improved but, if we compare education with some other things for which the Government is responsible, it has done well.

We need to pay considerably more attention to giving teachers more support so that they can properly control their classes and schools in areas in which that is difficult to do. It is not the fault of the teachers; they are teaching in a climate of discipline that is much worse than it was. We need to improve that aspect and help teachers to do so as well.

Is not the lesson of Sandwich Technology School the fact that if children are thoroughly involved in creative activities, the problems that you are talking about disappear?

I would agree that the problems diminish in that circumstance, but we are fighting quite a big problem in society and I do not think that they would disappear. Certainly, young people who are interested and motivated do much better than those who are not.

The motion talks about teachers rather than school teachers, so I would like to talk about teachers outwith schools. We need good teachers in colleges, which increasingly play an important part, in partnership with schools, in teaching young people. We need more good people in adult education and community education, a lot of which suffered severely when the regions were abolished some years ago. We also need a lot of investment in people and resources in youth work, which is scandalously neglected and comes under the auspices of the ministers present today.

I am assured—at second hand, but on good authority—that the total central Government grant that is given to all the national youth organisations would not keep three people for a year in a young offenders institution. If that is correct, it is ridiculous. We must put much more effort into youth work and ensure that we involve teachers in that effort.

Some schools do not value sport and the arts as much as they should. In some areas, the situation is excellent but, in others, sport and the arts are seen as an add-on, whereas they should be fundamental parts of the curriculum, flowing over into activity outside the school and influencing things within the school. I visited a school in North Lanarkshire in which the council had made a particular effort to fund sporting activities better. That had had a marked effect on the school, not only on the sporting side but on the attitude, performance, self-esteem and so on of the young people. Likewise, I think that international studies have shown that a study of music improves people's study of mathematics. The study of music is worth while on its own account, but if it has the added benefit of improving people's maths skills, it is surely something that we should be promoting.

We have to develop the use of schools after hours and at weekends. That involves the use and creation of premises and providing staff—teachers, coaches and people coming from outwith the school to help. If it helps, I do not see why we should not pay teachers extra for assisting with evening and weekend activities. People learn more outwith the classroom. To be honest, not that much is learned in the classroom; people learn outside the classroom, so such activity is critical.

How public-private partnership schemes are interpreted sometimes leads to a diminution of community activities in schools. Playing fields are often wretched. I recently heard of a school that has had to abandon its new grass pitches because they are so useless. Not enough changing rooms or other facilities are provided, for example, and the whole thing is not geared to community use of schools. The ministers conscientiously speak the right rhetoric, but the reality is different.

We should place more emphasis on outdoor education, on which I agree with Robin Harper. We both attended a presentation by the Scottish Youth Hostels Association, which provides just one example of the activities that are seriously underfunded in our society.

Instead of aiming at smaller classes, we should aim at more one-to-one or small-group learning support teachers or whatever we wish to call them. That is the way to sort out people who are having difficulty with their education. Often, intensive effort with such people can allow them to return to the normal classroom, where they catch up with the other pupils. We have started to have people who teach in both primary and secondary schools and we could use them more.

We can protect teachers from excessive form filling. I have several times volunteered to Jack McConnell to be his anti-bumf tsar, but he has never taken me up on that. Perhaps Peter Peacock and his excellent assistant, Robert Brown, might take me up on the suggestion. All spheres of activity involve an excessive amount of paperwork. If those ministers or I—or anyone else—could reduce the paperwork, that would be helpful.

The concern about promoted posts is serious.

You must finish now, Mr Gorrie.

We need good-quality people to run schools. I hope that the ministers will examine that.

I begin by acknowledging the hard work and professionalism of Scottish teachers. In the face of constant change, subject teacher shortages and large classes in many schools, the profession has provided high-quality education for most of our young people. That is despite chronic shortages of supply teachers in many areas and the Executive's failure to reach its targets for maths and English classes. The number of maths teachers in Scotland has fallen by 18 per cent since 1998, yet 40 per cent of 13-year-olds fall short of numeracy and literacy targets.

I cannot allow that point to stand. We intervened earlier to say that those figures are based on a different assessment system that takes on board senior teachers who are not actively engaged in teaching, for example. The trend in maths before and after that change has been constantly upwards. The member's point is simply wrong.

We will have to agree to disagree. The figures may be different, but I am out there speaking to teachers every day. I have read the statistics and the Executive is falling short.

Last year, the minister responded to my questions with assurances that good progress was being made on reducing class sizes, but I can tell a different story. I have the figures. For instance, 60 per cent of young people sit in maths classes whose size is above the national average; 54 per cent are in S1 English classes of sizes that are above the national average; and 61 per cent are in S2 English classes of sizes that are above the national average. I could continue, so do not kid us on, because we are not being fooled.

Young people are being taught by non-specialist maths teachers in many cases, so they are doubly disadvantaged. They sit in classes that are larger than the national average and they are taught by non-specialist teachers. Last week, I spoke to teachers in whose school French classes are being taught by teachers who used to provide learning support. We are short of English teachers, so other teachers who are not qualified in that subject are being roped in. Are we doing the best for our young people? I think not.

The Executive's recruitment campaign targets are all falling short. The target was that 325 maths teachers and 370 English teachers should start this autumn, but only 238 maths places and 192 English places have been offered to students in Scotland. Targets are not being met.

A recent survey that was commissioned by the Educational Institute of Scotland revealed a significant decline in morale in our secondary schools, which prompted the EIS to call on the Executive to intervene on promoted-post structures in secondary schools. Some 80 per cent of the teachers who were surveyed said that teacher morale had declined in their schools following the changes. The problem is that there is no consistency of approach in council areas, which has resulted in low teacher morale and poorer school management. It is significant that 58 per cent of those who were surveyed believed that discipline had deteriorated.

If our management structures are not right and we get rid of principal teachers, the middle level that is engaging with our young people will fall short—I thought that that would have been clear to anyone who knows anything about education. For example, if guidance teams are reduced, there will be fewer staff and less time to support vulnerable young people. Is it any wonder that there is a shortfall in meeting recruitment targets?

In order to obtain quality teachers for the 21^st century and quality education for 21^st century young people, we require classes of no more than 20 pupils, a national strategy for promoted posts and a recruitment campaign that can reassure prospective teachers that issues relating to indiscipline, poor promoted-post structures and class sizes are being addressed. Those are issues that are important today and for the future of education.

I quoted figures in last week's debate on autism. Like any good teacher, I will reinforce what I said. Some 30 per cent of schools thought that inclusion is not working and 10 per cent of schools thought that inclusion worked only where adequate support and resources are available. Some 13 per cent of schools thought that the answer to the question, "Is inclusion working?" depended on the severity of a person's disability. There are enormous problems with teachers who deal with inclusion in our schools. I want there to be inclusion and do not want to give it a bad reputation, which is exactly what the Executive is doing. It is giving inclusion an extremely bad reputation because it is not supporting teachers who are taking young people into their classes and it is not adequately training classroom assistants.

Before I came into the chamber, I was on the telephone to a local authority about a Down's syndrome child in a mainstream primary school. The child's special educational needs auxiliary was trained to deal with him last year, but she was removed because she would have to get a permanent contract if she got the hours this year. Someone else was brought in off the street to deal with the child. I have been dealing with another case involving a hearing and visually impaired child whose SEN auxiliary had special training last year. The auxiliary was cut for the same reason—permanent contracts are not being granted. The child is now so stressed that the mother is extremely upset.

Both cases can be resolved and I hope that they will be, but I ask the minister why parents and children should go through such things. I want answers to my question and I want him to tell me what he is doing to support inclusion in our schools.

The motion refers to

"the Executive's commitment to secure quality teachers for the 21st century."

I doubt very much whether that commitment will be delivered within the declared timescale. The Executive has a specific commitment to reduce all S1 and S2 English and maths classes so that there is a maximum of 20 pupils by 2007. I applaud that target but, like Rosemary Byrne, I fail to see how it will be met.

According to the Executive's figures, at the last count, only one local education authority—Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, not surprisingly—could boast that it had no S1 or S2 English or maths classes with 30 or more pupils. In the Falkirk area, between 43 per cent and 55 per cent—or around half—of S1 and S2 English and maths classes had 30 or more pupils. Last year, the school inspectors were quite scathing in their report on Falkirk's education services. Since then, there have been signs of improvement, but I am amazed that the inspectors did not highlight class sizes. Falkirk Council had one of the highest proportions of S1 and S2 English and maths classes with 30 or more pupils of all the local education authorities in Scotland.

It does not take a schools inspector or an expert in education to work out that if classes are too big, it is harder for the teachers to teach and harder for the pupils to learn. Therefore, the Scottish Executive should make more effort to recruit more teachers and should ensure that councils such as Falkirk Council have sufficient resources to employ more teachers, in order to reduce class sizes and improve educational standards.

The problem of teacher shortages seems to be especially acute in certain geographical areas and in certain subject areas, and that is reflected in pupils' performances. I referred earlier to the recent OECD report that found that Scottish pupils scored below the OECD average in both mathematics and science. Maths and science are essential building blocks for a smart, successful Scotland, yet there have been recent reports of maths classes having to be cancelled because of the shortage of teachers. The three largest teacher training universities are 20 per cent short of the recruitment target for trainee maths teachers.

Physical education seems to be another difficult area. The Executive's target is for an additional 400 PE teachers by 2008, but there are training places for only 268—33 per cent short of the target—despite the fact that the Executive has a policy of tackling childhood obesity by encouraging more sport and physical activity in schools. What is the point of having a policy and setting targets if they are not going to be met?

I urge the minister to take more urgent action now. If there are not enough teacher training places, they must be provided. If the available places are not being filled, the Executive should undertake a survey of young people—including university graduates—asking them why they are reluctant to enter teaching. Appropriate action should then be taken to make the teaching profession more attractive.

I am astonished by some of the things that Dennis Canavan says. He is missing the point. We are increasing our targets every year, to increase the number of teachers.

Minister, can you speak into your microphone, please?

We are being highly successful in that. Last month, 3,000 probationer teachers went into our classrooms—700 more than the year before—95 of whom are working in Falkirk. I hope that Dennis Canavan will acknowledge that that is progress.

I am not disputing the fact that the Executive and local education authorities are making efforts—with some degree of success—to recruit more teachers; I am saying that the targets that the Executive has set for 2007 will never be met at the present rate of progress. The most valuable educational resource is a good teacher. The Executive must face up to its responsibilities by ensuring the recruitment of more quality teachers to improve educational opportunities for the children and young people in our schools.

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in the debate. I trust that the fact that this subject has been raised in the chamber will send a message out to teachers throughout Scotland that the Scottish Parliament values their contribution to our society and to our children's lives. What more important job can there be than that of educating a child? What greater trust could I place in any profession than the trust that I, as a parent, place in teachers to influence and educate my child?

I confess that I enjoyed school. I am sure that we can all remember our favourite teacher. For me, it was Mr Wilson from Bank Street Primary School, in Irvine.

Not Brian?

Good memory.

Mr Wilson had our primary 7 class undertake a project on the general election, which I am happy to say that Labour won—perhaps that influenced me. After that, I was hooked on politics and I have been ever since. Mr Wilson influenced my future, and I am sure that other members will have memories of teachers who inspired them. Such teachers got the best out of us and encouraged us to be the best, from primary to secondary school. They made learning interesting and fun.

It is therefore right and proper that the partnership parties have taken the steps outlined by the minister this afternoon to acknowledge the importance of the teaching profession and to ensure that teachers' salaries reflect their skills and responsibilities; that they are supported in the classroom to maximise contact time with pupils; and that they have opportunities for personal development that are worthy of a prestigious profession. As we have heard from others this afternoon, that has not always been the case. All of that benefits the children and has a knock-on effect in developing that can-do, creative approach that Wendy Alexander, Robin Harper and other members spoke about this afternoon.

As an illustration, one of my local secondary schools yesterday took advantage of the route development fund to take pupils studying higher French over to Beauvais in France for the day. That was not just about language learning; it was about encouraging self-dependence and self-esteem and, for some of those pupils, it was about travelling in an aeroplane for the first time. Huge progress is being made. I am aware of a potential trip to New York for a media studies class. We must not underestimate how far we have travelled in the past few years. A lot of that has to do with encouraging teachers and developing their morale by saying to them that we value their profession.

That leads me nicely on to language skills. The minister will probably not be surprised that, when I speak about a 21^st century curriculum, I mention modern languages. I know that he will agree that in an enlarged European Union, with an increasingly global jobs market, language skills can be decisive in giving our young people a competitive edge in the jobs market. We have a duty to ensure that our young people have the opportunity to study several foreign languages. I am sure that the minister is aware that language learning is a top priority in the EU's Lisbon agenda on competitiveness. Indeed, the Commission is developing language indicators that it expects to be operational by 2007.

That is why projects such as the one in my constituency and in my colleague Margaret Jamieson's constituency—the partners in excellence project, about which I have written to the minister—must be supported. The minister will be aware that North Ayrshire Council has participated in that project for some years and, by all accounts, on every objective evaluation, the project has been a huge success. The criteria that were set for the project's success have been met—record levels of presentation in modern languages sometimes in deprived areas; increased levels of pupil attainment; the use of new technology in the teaching environment; and pupil and teacher interface with regions throughout Scotland and the EU. It would be difficult to find another project that would give such value for money and innovative teaching practice. I have written to the minister about it and it would help if he would give a commitment this afternoon to reconsider the issue and say whether he is going to withdraw funding for the programme. I believe that it is an excellent model that should be rolled out throughout Scotland.

I have a few words to say about 21^st century buildings because we have to move forward with that as well. Along with the investment in people, we must continue with the capital investment. Pupils and teachers have benefited from the programme to build ambitious, excellent schools, and we are witnessing the largest ever school building programme in history, and I welcome that.

However, we should remember that that capital investment is not just about building new schools; it is about ensuring that pupils in all schools have access to the kind of 21^st century high-tech environment that they might expect to encounter in the workplace with state-of-the-art computers with internet and broadband access, videoconferencing facilities, DVDs, sound and video recording equipment and language laboratories. That equipment has become part and parcel of everyday life in today's schools and it represents a substantial investment by the partnership parties.

I realise that I am running out of time. I wanted to say something about gender imbalance, but I do not think that I have time.

You have run out of time.

I will go on to my conclusion.

We have come a long way in the lifetime of this Parliament. I hope that the debate will send a clear signal to Scotland's teachers that we want to work in partnership with them and that we value the contribution that they make to our education system, which is renowned throughout the European Union and around the world for excellence and achievement. I support the motion.

Much as I acknowledge the Executive's good intentions and, indeed, the fact that it has had success in improving the professional status of teachers, I cannot help but think that a little modesty in the motion might have gone a long way towards more accurately reflecting where there is still work to be done. I am referring to the failure to achieve the Executive's stated target of having an additional 400 PE teachers in place by 2008-09.

In contrast to the sometimes formulaic anger of the Opposition parties when the Executive misses its targets, I want to suggest alternative ways of achieving the desired outcome, which is a healthier and happier school population and not merely an increase in the number of people who teach PE. The Executive has said that it will fill the gap in PE teacher numbers by 2008-09 by training qualified teachers in PE. I caution the minister against trying to make good the shortfall in the number of PE teachers, which is 142, through that approach. PE is a specific discipline and most generalist classroom teachers have neither the aptitude nor the desire to teach PE. That is not just the opinion of an old PE teacher who is protective of the standards of a profession that is coming into its own. Just today, Pat O'Donnell, of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, warned that increasing the number of PE teachers will not be as simple as asking other teachers to take on PE.

Has the minister a recruitment drive to tempt back into their tracksuits PE teachers who took early-retirement packages? They could be recruited on short, fixed-term contracts and receive good money. They could have two responsibilities: they would not merely teach PE in the classroom but encourage volunteers among parents, teachers and community activists who would be willing to do the sort of thing to which Donald Gorrie referred. I feel that a great deal of knowledge, talent and willingness remains untapped.

To widen the approach to producing healthier children, I also urge the minister to reappraise the role of teachers of home economics, particularly with regard to the teaching of nutrition, in achieving the objective of a healthier school population. I was disappointed to learn that of the 23 secondary schools in Edinburgh, only 11 offer HE at higher level. That situation is mirrored across the country. Only 14 people qualified as HE teachers in 2002-03, which was a reduction of 9 from the previous year's figure. I suggest to the minister therefore that he must boost the number of HE teachers as soon as possible, or much of the work that he is doing to improve PE in schools will be wasted. I believe that we should teach holistically with the aim of having a healthy mind in a healthy body. I am sorry if that sounds hackneyed, but it is another of the good aspects of our traditional approach to education that we have forgotten.

I recommend to the minister that he visits Bathgate Academy, where there is a superb physical activities co-ordinator, Roslyn Fraser, who, in conjunction with the canteen supervisor, Cathy Henderson, and an HE teacher, Pearl Scott, has contrived a programme that will, I think, outdo anything that comes from the hungry for success healthy eating standards that the minister wants to introduce. They have understood that to promote a healthy lifestyle it is much better to teach physical education, health education and moral education together. My knowledge of that approach was my reason for asking the minister whether there was room left in the curriculum to introduce new concepts.

I genuinely believe that the Bathgate Academy model is the way to approach physical and health education. There are teachers who are capable of taking on that holistic approach, but as it is different from the traditional approach to teacher training in Scotland, it requires investigation by the Executive. I would welcome an assurance from the minister that he has an open mind about that.

I will make one last plea. While ensuring that there is an adequate number of PE students in training, can the minister also ensure that they know how to fire a drive, whether that be in hockey, golf or any other sport that needs a stick and a ball, and that they are not all turned into sports scientists who have never hit a shuttlecock in anger?

There has been a bit of doom and gloom in this debate. Perhaps we should not be surprised by that. However, let us return to what we are debating and what we are celebrating. Apart from anything else, we are celebrating 2,770 newly qualified teachers this year, bringing the total up to 51,287. In my own region of Dumfries and Galloway, there are 36 primary probationer teacher induction places, and 21 in secondary. Only eight secondary teaching vacancies have been unfilled for over three months, and none in primary. Those figures are for the beginning of this term, not for February.

I thank the minister for meeting new teachers at Dumfries High School on their first day at work. I am sure that, like me, he was impressed by their commitment and enthusiasm. They were not all new graduates; they included people who had retrained from other professions. One gentleman had been in manufacturing and had decided that he wanted to be a teacher and to take on the challenges of this extremely important profession. The older new teachers will bring additional skills with them from their previous employment—skills that they will be able to pass on to their pupils. The figures from my region tie in with the figures from Strathclyde, which tell us that the average age of a PGCE graduate is 30. People are coming into teaching with a bit of extra experience.

As members know, because I am a former scientist I have always been interested in science teaching. I agree with Dennis Canavan on the importance of science and maths, so why do we not celebrate the 270 per cent increase over three years in recruitment to teacher training in chemistry? Chemistry is my subject, and I have always worried about the lack of people who want to be involved in it. Interestingly, the increase coincides with a sharp increase in the number of students studying chemistry at degree level this year. That figure was up by 17 per cent in Scotland, which must be welcomed.

The census of teachers in Scotland last year revealed that 47 per cent of chemistry teachers are over the age of 50. We have ground to make up, but let us be pleased that things are going in the right direction.

Anybody listening to this debate and hearing the celebration of a 274 per cent increase might wonder whether the base was awful low in the first place.

The member would have to know what the base was; she would have to be able to quote me the base.

We also have to consider the continuing professional development opportunities for existing science teachers to develop their skills.

The Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre offers to science teachers workshops, summer schools and links to networks in the science sector—things that can inject additional enthusiasm into our science teachers.

Last year, I saw the mobile sci-fun programme for S2 pupils when it came to Annan. It is part of a £10 million investment in science equipment and teacher training over three years, and it enables young people at that level to see how exciting and what fun science can be, rather than seeing it as a rather dull subject.

Some comments have been made about the performance of Scottish pupils in science. Yes, that may be an issue of concern, but I think that I am right in saying that the science curriculum will be one of the first to be reviewed, in 2007-08. It may be that we no longer need quite so many of the rigid divisions between physics, chemistry, maths and so on. It may be that some of the old barriers could be removed in a new curriculum, which could be more flexible to make it more attractive.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am sorry, but I am getting bit behind in my allotted time.

The problem that we have in science attainment in schools is not simply a matter of teaching and learning; unfortunately, I think that it reflects attitudes towards science and scientists in this country. Many of us—not only politicians, but the media and the scientific community—need to address that. Young people have to see science as something exciting and innovative, and something that can solve problems, rather than as something that is the preserve of geeks and in which other people would not want to get involved.

As Wendy Alexander suggested, there seem to be a lack of distinctive Opposition policies. On occasions, members have been talking about their own teaching experiences many years ago, or even about their experiences in school, but not actually about what is going on today. James Douglas-Hamilton and Margaret Ewing both made play of the problems of new teachers standing in front of a class, and Bill Butler told us about his own experiences in front of a class and about how it felt when he was young—although I am not suggesting that he is not young now. However, as Wendy Alexander pointed out, the new, much-lauded induction programme in Scotland means that new teachers have much more mentoring from experienced teachers and much less class contact time until they are sufficiently confident to cope with a class.

Adam Ingram warned against reducing standards to improve recruitment, as happens in England, but that is not happening here. As the minister highlighted, for every applicant who is accepted for teacher training, two are turned away, so standards are not being lowered to attract new teachers. Recent experience is increasingly that older graduates are applying, which shows that people actually want to become teachers. In part, that is due to the esteem in which society now holds teachers, which has increased as a result of many of the initiatives that, as the minister said, have taken place since the devolution settlement in 1999.

Tory members have quoted from the Headteachers Association of Scotland bulletin. I accept that the association has highlighted some concerns, but its bulletin also states:

"The National Teaching Agreement has conferred some serious benefits on the teaching profession and to education".

It also wants to engage in a debate

"to allow schools to move forward on the improvement agenda, and to ensure further benefit to young people."

Far from saying that all is wrong, the association has simply expressed some concerns, as trade unions do, while welcoming many of the advances that have been made.

Rosemary Byrne seemed to confuse the responsibilities of local authorities and ministers.

I must now sit down as my six minutes are up, but I welcome the immense improvements that have been made in teaching and learning over the past six and a half years. I hope that we continue in that vein.

I, too, add my praise for the members of the teaching profession, who are the basis of Scotland's education system. Providing education that is available to all has always been one of our country's great cultural strengths.

I sometimes wonder whether Peter Peacock suffers from selective amnesia. He has not always been a member of the Labour Party, so perhaps that is why he forgets the black days of 1974, of which Margaret Ewing reminded him.

The Conservatives have not failed to support positive developments or to welcome improvements. That is exactly what our education spokesman said. However, during the eight years of Labour Government since the apparently terrible days of 1997—of which Mr Peacock, obviously, will know nothing—what has actually happened? Those years may have gone quickly but, as Dennis Canavan said, we have a series of as-yet-unmet targets. We just get more confusion when another series of targets is published because something happens to be the target of the week.

rose—

Give me a moment or two.

As well as the minister's selective amnesia, another thing that worried me was that his speech contained no words offering freedom to teachers or choice to parents. In fact, the minister's face was a picture when my colleague James Douglas-Hamilton reiterated Mr Tony Blair's comments, which contained good Conservative principles and policies. Why does the minister fail to agree with his own people?

David Davidson must pay more attention. I specifically mentioned that part of the central purpose of our curriculum reforms—as with our other reforms such as the abolition of age-and-stage regulations, the changes in the school code and our initiatives on devolved school management—is to provide teachers with more space, freedom, choice and flexibility. We are doing that because teachers are the ones who can make a difference.

Perhaps when the Deputy Minister for Education and Young People winds up the debate, he can tell us when head teachers will have full control of their budgets. That would be a good start.

Unarguably, there was some negativity in today's debate, but some good points were also made. Several members—including Adam Ingram, Rosemary Byrne and Margo MacDonald—commented on the use of non-qualified staff. Not only could that involve a risk of litigation, it also means that teachers could be put into situations for which they are not fully qualified. The minister should respond to that concern.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton also highlighted the fact that the chartered teacher exercise is far too expensive and that promoted posts are attracting fewer and fewer candidates. When the deputy minister winds up the debate, it would be helpful if he could tell us whether any action will be taken on those two issues.

Turning to what others members said, I agree totally with some of Margaret Ewing's comments. Frankly, we need better parent-teacher partnerships. That message should be reinforced by all members whenever possible. The job of teaching a child cannot be done by the one without the other; parents as well as teachers must be involved. We agree with that completely.

Robin Harper talked about creative intelligence and creativity. In fact, in another debate, Wendy Alexander and I agreed that it was possible to teach creativity, which is an essential ingredient for future employment.

A number of other members talked about the development of social skills in outdoor activity sports and physical education and Margo MacDonald's reference to home economics is also important in that context. Young people are increasingly living on their own and yet they are not getting their health right; they do not know how to manage their shopping or look after themselves. I believe that the development of those social skills is best done in school.

Despite Elaine Murray's comments, I will return to the HAS document. She read out what she thought were the good bits, but the HAS bulletin says:

"Staff morale in secondary schools has been affected".

That is not a plaudit but a note of concern. Elaine Murray also read out only the last half of the section "Looking to the Future". The first half says that

"Management structures require to reflect the needs of the school, the availability and career aspirations of staff, and the workload issues in the current educational climate."

The HAS wants to discuss that with the minister. Elaine Murray really ought to give out the whole story and not just partial truths. [Interruption.] I thought that Elaine Murray wanted to intervene but I see that she wants just to sit and pass comment.

We have debated a number of issues from the shortages in science and maths teaching to support for teacher training. My colleague Brian Monteith raised the need for a review of teacher training facilities and several members spoke about preparation for the classroom. Another issue is CPD: in education, as in the health service, the subject is more talked about than acted on. It is not easy for teachers to get time off with pay for CPD. I have a feeling that the minister will be able to deal with the CPD issue only once he has got up staff numbers. Teachers do not have much paid time at the moment; I believe that it is 30-odd days.

Other members mentioned stress levels and the school climate. In an intervention earlier, I raised the problem of ill-discipline, which is an issue that parents as well as teachers need to address. Another vital issue is access to teacher training colleges. I have written to the minister on behalf of several constituents, all of whom have a degree but who either cannot get a grant to go to teacher training college or find a training post once they have the qualification. All of those issues form part of the system and they need to be addressed if we are to make teaching more efficient and attractive.

Of course, the real basis of the debate is that the minister has still not accepted the need to move to our vision for change, under which schools and parents have far more freedom to get on and run schools to the best advantage of the children or, as one member put it, to get a happy school climate. We need to give our young people a real future.

Iain Smith said that politicians should not tell teachers how to teach. Over the course of the debate, we have heard contributions from at least six former teachers: Margaret Ewing, Bill Butler, Robin Harper, Rosemary Byrne, Dennis Canavan and Margo MacDonald. I apologise to any member that I have missed. Some of the most hard-hitting contributions came from those former teachers. It is also interesting that the importance of respect for the teaching profession, which became the common thread in the debate, was raised in contributions from the non-teachers—perhaps that is how it should be.

"A Teaching Profession for the 21^st Century" was, of course, based on the McCrone report. In his time, Gavin McCrone has written other documents for ministers. His original report was on oil, which is one of the main drivers of Scotland's economy and his latest was on teachers, who are another major driver of the economy.

A well-educated workforce is key to productivity and growth, which is one of the reasons that every child in Scotland deserves the best start in life. That means cutting class sizes, an improved use of resources and—most definitely—well-trained teachers who are happy in their jobs. That is why we have to look at the implementation of the full McCrone report—the second one that is—in order to ensure that we have the supply of teachers that we need. My reference is to the report and not the agreement.

Elaine Murray and Wendy Alexander should reflect on the fact that there are times when the Parliament can reach cross-party agreement. Although the McCrone report came at a very difficult time for Scottish education, it achieved a real strength of cross-party support. If we had implemented the ideas in the first McCrone report, we would have had enough money to implement the second McCrone report many times over.

Scotland faces serious problems of teacher supply, and that must be acknowledged. The latest statistics show alarming increases in the number of vacancies in Scotland's schools. Scotland appears to be already 1,200 teachers short; vacancies in maths have doubled; vacancies in English and in modern languages have more than trebled. That is despite, as the minister said, almost 3,000 teachers going through the probationer induction programme.

Meanwhile, we hear stories of teachers who cannot get jobs. There is a real danger of a probationer bottleneck. I agree with Bill Butler that probationer mentoring is vital. There is a desperate need to place probationers who have to vacate their position to make way for another probationer, but who cannot get another job.

Elaine Murray mentioned the problem of people not knowing which are councils' responsibilities and which are Government's. However, the serious problem of workforce planning must be addressed, and the minister has acknowledged that. We are doing the right thing in recruiting more teachers. We warned the Executive in 2003 that it would have to start recruiting in 2003 and doubling or trebling numbers in order to meet its targets. Dennis Canavan is right that we could be in trouble.

Rosemary Byrne asked why we have shortages of supply teachers. Many new teachers are coming into the profession, yet there are still vacancies that cannot be filled. There is obviously a link between what the councils can do in their workforce planning and what the Government is doing.

Scotland's teaching workforce is the oldest it has ever been. If we do not get it right, the problems of lack of workforce planning that beset the hospital sector will visit the education sector. None of us wants that. I hope that the minister will read the McCrone agreement and consider its sensible suggestions. We desperately need to get new teachers into the profession, as 40 per cent of teachers are about to retire. Why do we not look at the wind-down agreement in the McCrone settlement to see whether we can get a phasing in of new teachers so that they can benefit from the wisdom and experience of the older teachers before those teachers leave? We should be able to do that in a sensible and planned way. Perhaps local authorities by themselves may struggle to meet those requirements, but the issue is worth addressing.

We should also look at the changing face of the workforce. We want to encourage more people to return to teaching. Some people do not want to go into teaching, having been at school or at university in an education environment. The come back to teaching initiative is one way of making sure that we attract the talent that is already out there by telling them that a change of career is possible and may be desirable. I would like the Executive do more on that.

Continuing professional development has to be addressed. The problem with McCrone in many ways is that it missed the generation in their late 20s and early 30s, those with young families. They are the ones being asked to fork out the money for continuing professional development.

We have to be careful when reflecting on education that we do not blame the Executive for everything and that it does not blame the Opposition for everything.

Brian Monteith talked about year zero. The five-year-old who started primary 1 in 1997 is now 12 or 13 years old and is part of the generation that is underperforming in maths and science, according to the OECD. It is not necessarily the 15-year-olds who are underperforming. Neither the present Executive nor the previous Conservative Government can claim that it is the custodian of performance and success in education. The people who can legitimately claim to be the custodians of quality in education are teachers: they have been the subject of the debate today.

): This has been a very interesting debate, with the ebb and flow of statistics, although I am not sure that I followed all of them.

I would like to respond to as many points as I can, and I apologise in advance if I miss anyone because of a lack of time. However, as I listened to the various merchants of doom and their predictions of disaster it struck me that some members have forgotten just how far we have come since 1999 and the darker days before that, to which Brian Monteith quite rightly referred. Incidentally, I remind him of the put down of his leader by my colleague Ian Jenkins. He said that before 1999 there was darkness and the abyss. That should be borne in mind.

I realise that the minister is a Liberal Democrat member of the coalition, but I remind him that between 1997 and 1999 Labour was in power, so perhaps he might revise his comments.

I think there was an interregnum, if I can put it that way, before the Scottish Parliament was set up.

Let us try to get to the heart of the statistics. We have heard all sorts of figures in the chamber this afternoon. No doubt most of them have some validity in their own context, but the reality is that, across the board, there has been an enormous increase in the number of teachers who go through the system. I remind members of the figures. In Maths, 147 people entered teacher training in 2003-04 compared with 250 this year. In English, the figure rose from 184 to 364. In Chemistry, it rose from 46 to 116. Those are substantial increases.

The figures for those taking PGCE courses to teach in primary schools rose from 706 in 2003-04 to 1,023 last year and 1,464 this year. That is echoed at secondary level, where the figure rose from 982 in 2003-04 to 1,340 last year and 1,767 this year. In anyone's view, however they mould and deal with the statistics, those are substantial figures. We should start with them.

Will the minister take an intervention?

No. I have limited time.

Those figures sit against the background of the Executive's commitment to have 53,000 teachers by 2007—a commitment that will be met. Peter Peacock led off on that matter.

A number of other positive points were made during the debate. Adam Ingram said that teachers make the difference in motivation and he was echoed by a series of speakers later in the debate. He is absolutely right. Politicians cannot carry out the actual exercise of education in the school classroom with the children. That has to be done by the professionals, which is why a series of initiatives has been introduced to back up the professional commitment of our teachers. Those important initiatives include improvements to teachers' remuneration and conditions of employment, opportunities for professional support and the arrangements for new inductions.

I return briefly to the figures that Lord James mentioned in his speech. He said that there are 740 vacancies, but I think that that figure is from June of this year or thereabouts. The vacancy rate of 1.7 per cent is low by anyone's standards, but that was before the addition of the 3,000 new teachers coming through this session. We must take account of that. There is a low vacancy rate to start with and a considerable number of new teachers are being pushed through the system.

There were some comments about problems with job sizing and the views of the Headteachers Association of Scotland. There will, no doubt, be issues about fine tuning and taking forward what is a complicated structure to make sure that everything works as well as it can, but Elaine Murray was quite right to point out that that is to be seen in the context of the Headteachers Association's much broader support for the results of the McCrone review. In Fiona Hyslop's positive winding-up speech she recognised the importance of the McCrone settlement, which was supported throughout the Parliament as the key to moving forward, but let us not forget that it was initiated by the coalition Executive.

Wendy Alexander talked in her interesting and helpful speech about the importance of leadership. In my previous existence I was convener of the Education Committee, which is undertaking the pupil motivation inquiry that Adam Ingram mentioned. In the committee, it became increasingly clear to us all just how important leadership is, not just in terms of head teachers or senior staff but throughout the school, right down to the teachers, classroom assistants and all the people in the team. They make the success or failure of the school. When one goes into a good school, one can smell success. I think it was Irene Oldfather who talked about a local school in that context. Equally, one can smell a situation in which things are not quite as well as they should be.

The Executive's objective is to bring all schools up to the highest possible standards on the basis of an improvement agenda. Iain Smith touched on the fact that we have a great opportunity. On the one hand we have falling school rolls—although I think that Wendy Alexander is doing her personal best to try to reverse that trend—and we have rising numbers of teachers. That presents a huge opportunity both to reduce class sizes and to implement the new opportunities in PE and other areas that members, from their various perspectives, talked about. It gives us a once-in-a-generation chance to make things much better. We are well on track to doing precisely that.

Margaret Ewing and one or two Conservative members commented on the burdens that are being placed on new teachers. We are trying to reverse that trend. We have done a number of things to remove some of the pressures, like national testing, that were placed on school teachers by the previous, Conservative Government. We are trying to free up the curriculum through the curriculum review to enable teachers to teach and to increase flexibility.

That takes place against the background of parental involvement, as mentioned by Margaret Ewing. We want parents to be involved and to get behind schools and the education system. That is the purpose of the parental involvement bill that will come forward this session.

I do not want to say much about Brian Monteith's eccentric speech, but I was struck by the fact that he sat at the back of the Conservative benches. I wonder why that was. I thought that David Davidson might join him on the back bench and leave the more reasonable presentation of the Conservative viewpoint to Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, as always.

Robin Harper made a number of good points on business looking for social skills, on greater creative opportunities, on the UN decade of education for sustainable development, and particularly on outdoor education, which he has a substantial record of raising previously. Ministers are sympathetic to the points he makes, and we are examining exactly what can be done to take them forward. Like Donald Gorrie, he touched on the numbers of art, music and drama teachers. I can come back to him on that point later, because I do not have time to do so in the context of this speech.

Donald Gorrie talked about discipline. I know where he is coming from. The point is echoed by teachers from time to time. It is clear that discipline is very much assisted by the success of a school. It is not just about success within happy, well organised, well motivated and well led schools; it is also about the effect that they have on the surrounding communities. That is an important point to bear in mind.

Donald Gorrie also talked about youth work, and drew an interesting parallel with the amount of money that is spent on it. We are awaiting the youth strategy, which will be announced this autumn and will give the context in which we can progress in that area. We should remember that our young people are educated and make progress not only in our schools, but in the surrounding community. [Interruption.]

Order. Could members please take their seats? Far too many private conversations are going on.

The uniformed organisations, youth organisations, the Scottish Youth Hostels Association, as Robin Harper said, and other organisations are important aspects of extra-curricular activities.

I am tempted to take up Donald Gorrie's offer of a bumf buster. We will consider whether it is practical.

Members seemed to get excited towards the end of the debate. I am not sure why. Dennis Canavan followed Rosemary Byrne, and they went on at great length about class sizes. The reality is that in the bulk of Scottish schools we are well on track to achieve the maximum targets that we set—25 pupils in P1 and 20 in S1 and S2 in maths and English. The bulk of Scottish schools are already arriving at that point. Our objective is to ensure that the position is universal by 2007. Let us not forget that those targets are mechanisms and drivers for broader educational objectives. They are not meritorious in themselves; they are meritorious because they will affect the quality of education in our schools.

Young people are our future. Sir Jonathan Sacks said to me yesterday that we have a tremendous new generation of young people who are able, innovative and public spirited. Our aim as a Scottish Executive is to ensure that all our young people have the fullest opportunity to fulfil their potential, and to support our professional teachers in their support of that aim. I beg members to support the motion.