Scotland outlines plans to close education attainment gap

The Scottish government has outlined plans to close the education attainment gap across Scotland over the next five years.

The Education Delivery Plan aims to achieve this by extending the ‘reach, scope and investment’ of the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

It also includes plans to simplify the curriculum and ‘significantly streamline the current range of curriculum guidance’, with the aim of reducing workload for teachers.

Additionally, the Scottish government has said it will launch a governance and funding review to examine system changes, which will consider how to give more power to schools through more devolved decision making and funding.

John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education, has said that the review will also explore ‘all options’ to ensure there is the correct balance between autonomy and accountability in Scotland’s education system.

Swinney said: “We must ensure our curriculum, applauded by the OECD, can be delivered so that our teachers are free to teach and our children have the opportunity to learn.

“We will give teachers confidence about what the Curriculum for Excellence expects of them. We will de-clutter the curriculum and strip away anything that creates unnecessary workload for teachers and learners, and we will take forward a new programme of reducing workload in schools. I will directly oversee this activity supported by a panel of teachers whose voice and experience will inform what is taken forward.

“We must create the right structures to encourage and enable everyone to participate fully in school life.”