1. To ask the First Minister what engagements she has planned for the rest of the day. (S5F-00605)

I have engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.

I thank you, Presiding Officer, the First Minister and members for your comments over the last 24 hours about Alex Johnstone. We are all in mourning right now.

However, Alex would not want me to talk about him, but would want me to get stuck into the Government’s record.

This week, the latest set of programme for international student assessment figures were released. After a decade of Scottish National Party control of Scottish education, those are the worst set of results ever recorded. To pre-empt the usual excuses, who does the First Minister blame for that? Is it the Labour Party or is it us?

The First Minister:

I also take the opportunity to pay tribute to the late Alex Johnstone. With his passing the Scottish Parliament has lost one of its great personalities and he will be sorely missed across the chamber. All our thoughts today are with Linda, the rest of his family and all his colleagues.

I take responsibility, on behalf of the Scottish Government, for the performance of Scottish education. If anyone thinks that I will stand here and give excuses, they are wrong. There is lots of other evidence on Scottish education that I could cite, but I am not going to do that today because the results of the PISA survey published earlier this week show that we are not where I want us to be. They are not good enough. I am determined that we take the action that will lead to improvement.

The only thing that I will say about those figures is the contextual point—I say it simply because it is a fact—that the survey was drawn from a sample carried out almost two years ago, in March 2015. I say that because that was around the same time that we had the Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy, which prompted the programme of reform that is now under way.

Our programme of reform in education is firmly based on the advice that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development gave us in its review of curriculum for excellence back in 2015. I am determined that we move forward with that reform and that that will lead to the improvements in Scottish education that we all want to see.

The answer was the same as it always seems to be: “Don’t worry, bear with us, give us a bit more time and it’ll all be fine.” It is a stuck record and we have heard it all before.

I n 2007, education secretary Fiona Hyslop, in response to falling standards, said:

“We are determined to reverse that trend.”—[

Official Report

, 5 December 2007; c 4069.]

In 2013, Alasdair Allan, the Minister for learning, in response to falling standards, said:

“I am confident that we will see continued progress in future years.”

Just last year, Angela Constance, in response to falling literacy standards, promised that she was the one, after all the previous education ministers, who would sort things out. That went well.

We have had 10 years of promises from education secretary after SNP education secretary. How does the First Minister mark their efforts—pass or fail?

The First Minister:

We have a record number of exam passes in Scottish education; that is simply a statement of fact. We also have a higher percentage of young people going to positive destinations than was previously the case.

I come back to the point that I made earlier. The PISA survey results are not good enough and I want to see them improve. Last year, we asked the OECD to carry out a review of curriculum for excellence. That review was published in December 2015. The OECD report told us to focus on a number of things. First, it said that we had to focus on closing the attainment gap, so we have established the attainment fund. That is already working in schools across our country.

Secondly, it told us to put in place a measurement system, so we established the national improvement framework. Initial data at school level from the national improvement framework will be published next week and, from next year, it will be informed by new standardised assessments that we are going to introduce.

Thirdly, the OECD told us to simplify the curriculum, and John Swinney has been taking action to strip away bureaucracy, reduce teacher workload and allow teachers to focus on what they are doing.

The OECD said that we had to put schools at the heart of the system, so the governance review is now looking at how we empower schools. Finally, it said to improve leadership in our schools, so we are taking forward a new programme of developing head teachers through the Scottish College for Educational Leadership.

Those are hard, concrete and tangible actions. I know that the Opposition will want to criticise for the PISA survey and I can have no complaint about that. However, it is now important for us all to get behind the reforms because they will lead to the improvements that we want to see in Scottish education.

That was not even an attempt from the First Minister to defend her ministers’ performance. We have been warning about the state of our education system for years.

The First Minister talks of a governance review that is to come, but we still await the details. Given the evidence of this week, that has to go deeper.

The single biggest education reform under the SNP Government has been curriculum for excellence. Nobody here can simply brush aside the fact that, since it has come in, standards have fallen. I am telling the First Minister today that our on-going support for curriculum for excellence cannot be taken for granted. I believe that the entire project should now be put on probation.

I ask a simple question, and I ask it in all sincerity: if standards are going down because of curriculum for excellence, why are we sticking by it?

The First Minister:

“The principles behind the curriculum for excellence are absolutely right. There is unanimous agreement within the Parliament that it is the right way, as there is within the teaching professions and we have to accept that this is something that can work.”

Those are not my words. Those are the words of the Tory education spokesperson, Liz Smith, on 7 December. I believe that curriculum for excellence is the right way forward.

Ruth Davidson has, quite rightly and understandably, quoted the PISA survey, which was carried out by the OECD. We asked the OECD to review curriculum for excellence. It has said that curriculum for excellence is the right thing to do but it has given us the advice that I narrated in my previous answer about how we can improve it and how we can improve standards in our schools. We will continue to take forward that action because that is what the parents and pupils of the country have a right to expect.

That was a pretty selective summary of what the First Minister wants us to believe that the OECD report says. Let me read out what the OECD report actually says:

“We emphasise that this summary is not an evaluation of CfE itself, and indeed the evidence is not available for such an evaluation”.

All that we have had from this Government is bland platitudes, and all the while, standards have gone down. We have gone backwards in reading, backwards in science, backwards in maths, and this week, the First Minister’s SNP colleagues told us that, despite all the challenges that we face right now, what would be good for Scotland is a constitutional crisis. It is not another constitutional crisis that we need; it is a Government that faces up to its failures and tackles them head on. What is more important—picking yet another fight over the constitution or picking a fight to improve our schools?

The First Minister:

It might have escaped Ruth Davidson’s notice, but the entire United Kingdom faces a constitutional crisis right now. It is being played out in the Supreme Court this very day, as it has been all week, and it is a constitutional crisis that was created by the European obsession—the Brexit obsession—of the Conservatives.

I will leave Ruth Davidson to do the politics today. I want to get back to the important matter of Scottish education. I noticed that Ruth Davidson did not comment on the quotation from Liz Smith from earlier this week, when Liz Smith said that the principles behind curriculum for excellence are “absolutely right”. That is the view of the Tory education spokesperson; it is also my view and the view, I think, of most members of this Parliament.

What we need to do now is focus on implementing the OECD’s recommendations, ensuring that we invest in raising attainment, as we are doing through the attainment fund, ensuring that we have much more data available at school level about our schools’ performance, and ensuring that we are taking away bureaucracy and investing in educational leadership. Those are the hard actions that this Government will get on with, because that is what parents across this country have a right to expect us to do—and we will do it.