Informed Scotland July/August 2020 – Rethinking education
Our latest edition covers a summer like no other. With so many important developments happening, it was hard to select which to highlight…
One of the hottest topics was the SQA National Qualifications results. A summary of the sequence of events, plus details of an independent review and plans for next year feature in the digest.
A report from the Children & Young People’s Commissioner Scotland is critical of the lack of direct input from young people into decisions on exams. It states that during the pandemic, ‘Most strikingly… children have been largely absent from the decisions that have so profoundly impacted their lives’.
A group of individuals set up Exam.Scot to explore the future of exams. And with ‘algorithm’ one of the words of the summer, reports on degree algorithm design and practice by Universities UK, GuildHE and QAA are worth exploring.
Meanwhile there has been a minor explosion of organisations and individuals who are considering the future of education, particularly, but not exclusively, sparked by the current crisis. These include:
The Herald’s The Future of Education, the first Creative Bravery Festival of learning, Scottish Institute for Enterprise’s Future of Learning Innovation Challenge, and Jisc’s Learning & teaching reimagined and Shaping the digital future of FE and skills projects.
We’ll be keeping a regular watch on these and other developments, such as the Scotland 2030: Future Schooling, Education and Learning project which is nearing its latter stages.
Beyond COVID-19, reports worth delving into include:
- a compelling and very readable Scottish technology ecosystem review for Scottish Government
- an OECD review of the apprenticeship system in Scotland commissioned by Skills Development Scotland
- A new vision for colleges by the Commission into the College of the Future, and a report commissioned on the role of universities in Recovery and transformation
- Scottish Council of Deans of Education’s National Framework for Digital Literacies in Initial Teacher Education
- General Teaching Council for Scotland’s draft Professional Standards 2021 for teachers
- the National Articulation Forum Final Report from Universities Scotland and Colleges Scotland.
Finally, some parts of the learning & skills landscape are going through a particularly tough time, including outdoor education. Check out the Scottish Advisory Panel for Outdoor Education’s (SAPOE’s) open letter to government and the #SaveYourOutdoorCentres campaign.
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