Seven years ago we published the first edition of Informed Scotland.
Remember 2012, when
the talk was of Scotland’s 23.1% youth unemployment, the merger of 37 further
education colleges, and Curriculum for Excellence and the move from Standard
Grades to new Nationals? Now youth unemployment is down to 6.6%, there are 26
colleges… and, okay, we’re still talking about Curriculum for Excellence and
qualifications!
Today’s hot topics include challenging issues not regularly discussed back then, like mental health & wellbeing, or non-existent, like Brexit.
On mental health there were signs of things to come, with Education Scotland’s Communities Team publishing Learning is good for your health in May 2012, and a new national strategy for health & wellbeing in schools under development.
There was no hint of Brexit in issue 1 however. The main item on the EU was a Scottish Government announcement of £25m of European Structural Funding for projects to support getting young people into work. Perhaps had we lauded, rather than taken for granted, this type of regular, significant intervention, we would have avoided the major challenges created by Brexit today.
Back to the present, and May 2019 was the month for a plethora of must-read reports, including:
This is the tip of the information iceberg: become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can
keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a
sample copy.
The annual exam season began for schools, colleges and universities. A Reform Scotland report focused on the number of National Qualifications a student can take at S4. And SCQF Partnership encouraged employers to become ‘inclusive recruiters’ by using SCQF levels instead of specific qualifications in their recruitment processes.
Other items to highlight include:
Scottish Funding Council’s first statistical report on the articulation of HNC/HND students from colleges to universities
Finally, a quick mention with thanks to Edinburgh graphic designers, Mamook, who created the original Informed Scotland design and template – as you may have noticed they’ve provided a few new snazzy cover designs over the last year, and this issue features the final one. We hope you like them as much as we do!
This really is just a taste of all that happened last month! To keep on top of developments you need to become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
As well as the
annual round-up of statistics, including on college staffing and higher
education students, qualifiers and retention rates, interesting items to highlight
include:
This really is just a taste of all that happened last month! To keep on top of developments you need to become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
There was no shortage of learning and skills activity in blink-and-you-missed-it February. A range of hot topics, familiar and new, presented themselves across the landscape.
Inclusion was referenced in all sectors:
There is a new SCQF Inclusive Recruiter campaign; a new Creative Scotland Create:Inclusion Fund; a new HUB for SUCCESS offering support to care experienced young people in Edinburgh; and a new Prince’s Trust project to develop digital skills for unemployed and underemployed 16–30 year-olds across the UK backed by Google.org.
And look out for affordable coworking spaces opening up in libraries across the country, thanks to SLIC’s imaginative new Scottish Coworking Network. Take it from one who knows: coworking is to be recommended for micro-businesses, freelancers or start-ups – it absolutely creates opportunities for cross-fertilisation of learning and ideas!
Brexit made its way onto the cover of Informed Scotland for only the second time. There is much evidence of its increasing influence on the economy, business, employment and skills, with words and phrases like ‘gloomy’, ‘uncertainty and confusion’ and ‘threat’ littering forecasts.
The further and higher education sector is raising alarms and preparing for Brexit’s potential impact. The Scottish Funding Council published EU Exit and Scottish colleges and universities and added an EU Exit section to its website, while university bodies including Universities UK and the Russell Group, which is Chaired by the Principal & Vice-Chancellor of University of Glasgow, wrote a strongly worded open letter to MPs.
But there was plenty more learning & skills activity to fill this bumper double issue!
As well as the usual numerous statistical reports and annual reviews, other items to highlight include:
The sixth annual Informed Scotland Learning & Skills Hottest Topics list, plus a round-up of last year’s activity, is in an Annex to the digest. There’s also a link to an interview for Radio EDUtalk in January, when Angela Gardner and David Noble explored the stories behind the list, and looked at what’s on the horizon for 2019 (highlights here).
In an interview for Radio EDUtalk, Angela took David Noble’s listeners on the third annual whistle-stop tour of some of the items that will be shaping Scotland’s learning & skills landscape this year.
You can listen to a podcast of the show, which also reviewed the Hottest Topics in 2018. Below are links to some of the programmes, projects and events mentioned for 2019:
Applications for Erasmus+ funding are open to Scottish schools and organisations until 5 February (for mobility funding) and 21 March (for strategic partnership funding)
British Council has CPD workshops available in Norway, Albania and France for teachers in Scotland and the wider UK
Children’s University Scotland is keen to hear from schools interested in working with them on new ways to support children’s wider participation in learning outside of school and during holiday periods
The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) is continuing its national rollout of MyProfessionalLearning
SCQF Partnership has projects to recognise and map the skills of migrants and veterans
Keep yourself or your organisation better informed about what’s happening in learning & skills in Scotland. Find out how to subscribe here or contact [email protected] to receive a recent copy of the digest.
We’re delighted to present the sixth annual list of Learning & Skills ‘Hot Topics’ that made it onto the cover of Informed Scotland over the past year.
For the first time since we began compiling the list in 2013, two topics share top spot:
=1. Diversity, equality, equity & inclusion (new)
=1. Teacher education, development,
shortages & recruitment (=2 in 2017)
=3. Digital skills (1)
=3. Future skills, learning & work (4)
=3. Gender balance & equity (=5)
=3. International collaboration &
comparisons (=5)
As predicted, ‘Teacher education, development, shortages & recruitment’ continued to make the mainstream headlines in 2018, pushing it up one place from last year. In contrast, ‘Diversity, equality, equity & inclusion’ is on the list for the first time, with themes such as poverty, social mobility, disadvantage, disability, care experience and ethnicity grabbing the attention across the landscape.
Although ‘Digital skills’ slipped down the list after two years as the hottest topic, it remains the only issue to have been in the top three every year since 2013.
Three other topics have made every annual list: ‘Widening access’, ‘STEM’, and ‘Skills gaps & shortages’, and they will most likely be hot issues in 2019.
Surprisingly, ‘Apprenticeships’ dropped out of the list for the first time, having only appeared on the cover for March, coinciding with Scottish Apprenticeship Week.
A year ago we wrongly predicted that the Year of Young People would be on the list… It only just missed out, however, and its influence has permeated learning & skills and wider activity throughout 2018. (We’ll have to wait for 2020 for the next Themed Year, which will be Scotland’s Coast & Waters.)
Finally it’s worth highlighting two topics that made Informed Scotland covers for the first time: ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) and ‘Brexit – recruitment & skills challenges’. We expect to see them both back as hot topics in 2019 and they might even sneak onto next year’s list.
What were your 2018 highlights? What are your predictions for 2019?
Angela will be discussing the stories behind the list in an interview for Radio EDUtalk on 22 January, in a review of 2018 and a look ahead to 2019. Tweet us @InformedScot and we’ll share your thoughts.
Make it your New Year’s resolution to be better informed about what’s happening across learning & skills in business, schools, further & higher education, community & adult learning, and government & wider society. Contact [email protected] to receive a recent sample copy and find out how to subscribe here.
It’s time to say a big thank you to our wonderful clients, associates and coworkers after another busy year for AJ Enterprises!
We’ve been hard at work keeping Informed Scotlandsubscribers up to date with the changes and challenges in learning & skills throughout 2018.
As well as the monthly digests, we’ve provided Annexes with detailed actions from three key Scottish Government reports, and published the sixth annual Organisations & People Special.
Many thanks to our subscribers for the great feedback and for spreading the word about what we do! Also thanks to Geoff Leask of Young Enterprise Scotland and Sarah Philp of Osiris Educational for their enlightening guest blog posts, and special thanks to Janey Boyd at Mamook Graphics for designing new covers for Informed’s sixth anniversary!
We continued to promote hundreds of events via the Learning & Skills Calendar, and managed to attend a few ourselves.
We’ve also shared information widely via social media – @InformedScot now has over 3,700 followers on Twitter, up 400 from this time last year, and over 400 followers on Instagram, up 170 – thanks to all our engaged followers!
It was a pleasure to continue working closely with London-based associate, Elaine Hendry of emh connect, particularly on the quarterly Skills Research Digest that we produce jointly for Northern Ireland’s Department for the Economy.
Turning to other business, we’ve provided communications, copy-writing, editing and proofreading, research and horizon scanning services to old and new clients, with regulars including the global company Macmillan Education, Winmat Publishers in Ghana and Beyond Green here in Edinburgh.
Personal thanks are owed to associates it has been a pleasure to work with this year, including Kirstin who helped look after our Newbattle conference stand, and to Hannah at the start and Sarah at the end of 2018 for helping to keep the Events Calendar updated. Thanks also to supportive fellow local members of the Society for Editors & Proofreaders, particularly Lesley Ellen and Cathy Tingle – due to their persistent encouragement, I achieved Advanced Professional Member status in March!
Finally, I’ve enjoyed another year of coworking alongside a bunch of creative, talented people in Evergreen Studio in Edinburgh’s Old Town – thanks for the camaraderie, support, technical advice – and the regular sweet treats!
The annual Informed Scotland Hottest Topics in Scottish Learning & Skills will be shared here in January.
Email [email protected] for more information about any of the above, to subscribe to Informed Scotland, or to discuss how we could support your work in 2019.
Diversity and inclusion were common themes across the learning & skills landscape in November.
From increasing ethnic and gender diversity among teachers, construction workers, engineers, interns and university boards, to teaching LGBTI equality and inclusion in schools, and recognising the skills of refugees and asylum seekers.
Our monthly intelligence digest of Scottish Learning and Skills
“I find Informed Scotland incredibly useful for keeping up to date about issues. It very much delivers what it sets out to achieve – ensuring people are informed about updates that matter to them in an accessible and concise a way as possible.”
“Informed Scotland has become a well-established element of our monitoring role for education and skills policy across the UK. It is one of the few publications that manages to combine a high quality overview of the education, skills, business and labour market information for a nation. There is an understanding of the relationships between these factors that is rarely recognised or captured in such a succinct way. A vital read for all who operate or who aspire to operate in this sector.”
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“Always find something of interest in Informed Scotland – either recent reports or the people moving into new roles.”
