Blog 6: Scottish Education Reforms

A major new report that came out of Scotland has stated that “education reforms over 50 years have failed to make a significant improvement to the exam results of children from disadvantaged backgrounds”.  It was estimated that 1 in 5 students who leave school have very few or no qualifications and have poor skills in basic literacy and numeracy. With that being said the Commission of School Reform says that there have been many changes and the changes have had a great impact. Some of the changes that are looked to be impacting education are raising the school leaving age, launch of standard grade exams and comprehensive schools. Almost half of the countries overtaking Scotland are developing countries where standards are thought to be lower. Leaders from Scotland believe that they are able to succeed in the educational reform and believe that they have good ideas but they have lacked the ability to implement them. They believe that implementation has been weak and slow.

                It was also stated that no school in a disadvantaged area or place has ever matched the performance of schools that are higher or in a more affluent area. The report also wanted to note that what was just stated is not true for some other countries. It highlighted that there had been other countries that have seen rapid improvement such as Poland, Singapore, England and Ontario in Canada. The report also stated that it is suggested that children begin to fall behind in early secondary. It also noted that this has seemed to be the trend for about 40 years but no actions have been taken to fix this. It stated that educational failure can be a disaster personally but it also impacts the society in a sense that educational failure can be linked to unemployment, ill-health and the possibility of being involved in crime.

                Competition has increased and those countries that have a weak record in educating their youth are falling behind. The report also states that education reform seems to be at a hold because not enough time has been used to share objectives with the teachers and also the hearts and minds of the public needs to be won over. It was also stated that the parents Scotland may be shocked to see the disappointing statistics because for the most part the parents have been satisfied. Education reformers and those in the schools system would like to see an improvement in the school systems in Scotland. They want to ensure that reform is possible and they can catch up with other countries. They would also like to see freedom to be able to specialize in vocational skills or arts and sciences.  I found this article to be a good example as to why education is so important around the world globally now. Countries are realizing that we have a growing global economy which is resulting in competition between countries and the school system and education reformers in Scotland realize that they need to catch up and do not need to fall behind. 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21643568

Jennifer Aiken

3/4/2013 3:52pm