Scotland’s school curriculum should be scrapped and replaced with a system more focused on rote learning, the Scottish Conservatives will say today.
The party will become the first political group at Holyrood to call for the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) to be dropped entirely on the first day of their party conference in Aberdeen.
In a policy paper seen by The Times, the Tories say that “the ability to learn and retain facts about a given subject is key” to what they have branded their “curriculum for all”. The basis for the proposals would be pupils being prepared for exams, further and adult education, apprenticeships and “the early development of digital skills”.
Oliver Mundell, the party’s education spokesman, said the curriculum was beyond saving. He called the present approach “an anchor that will keep dragging down school standards”.
He said: “Teaching and learning should be the central focus of our schools and we must halt the drift towards our teachers doubling up as social workers and wellbeing experts. This is often presented as kindness by the SNP but it is simply asking our schools to plug the gap for cuts elsewhere while educational attainment suffers as a result.”
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Under the proposals, funding would be linked to improvements in pupil performance in a measure the Tories claim would “encourage schools to innovate and implement best practice”.
Headteachers would be given more autonomy over staffing and budgets and how to implement the curriculum, while parents would be given greater involvement in the running of schools.
The document suggests there will be a push to severely limit teachers’ involvement in pupils’ lives. The Conservatives have opposed the named person scheme, which would see children given a state-appointed guardian.
“The number one objective of our schools should be to educate our children, it is for parents to pass on their values to their children,” the paper says. “That means ensuring that schools do not undermine the role of parents in deciding what is right or wrong for their child.”
The Tories want a four-year discussion, which would last until the next Holyrood election, to be led by “professionals and independent experts”. It is understood that discussions are already under way to find people to take part in the project.
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Mundell argued that Scotland was “a nation of innovators, entrepreneurs and thinkers” but added: “We are at risk of losing all that if we keep sticking with the same distinctly un-Scottish approach that has seen our schools plummet down international league tables.”
The party conceded that “our own views will evolve as we take part in that conversation” but was firm that the answer does not lie in CfE.
“The current approach is an anchor that will keep dragging down school standards and artificially limiting opportunities for our young people,” Mundell said.
Professor Lindsay Paterson, of Edinburgh University, has previously said CfE lacked “academic rigour” and was “dumbing down” education while Keir Bloomer, one of the programme’s architects, has criticised the lack of factual information to inform debate.
Under the Tory plans, Scotland would rejoin international comparisons, such as the TIMSS and the PIRLS programmes. It would also have a separate independent school inspectorate, which is being set up by the Scottish government, staffed by former or seconded teachers rather than civil servants.
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Reforms proposed by the Scottish government would create three new agencies to replace the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which sets and marks exams, and Education Scotland, responsible for policy guidance and inspection. Shirley-Anne Somerville, the education secretary, insisted last week that the overhaul would create “a new culture, values and governance structures” in schools.
The Conservatives said one of these should be based in Aberdeen, to create 1,000 jobs in the northeast and allow officials to “better understand and tackle the issues faced by schools outside of the central belt”.
