Scotland's ailing education system desperately needs a 'big idea'. Where's yours, Mr Swinney? – Brian Wilson

According to Ms Sturgeon, when she became First Minister in 2014, she was to be judged by her record on education and the closure of the attainment gap between rich and poor in Scotland’s schools. Like everything else, it proved to be a soundbite without substance.

Insofar as Scotland’s attainment gap has closed at all, the PISA analysis attributed this to the better-off doing worse rather than poor kids doing better. Overall, PISA tells us, Scottish pupils by the age of 15 are a year behind their English peers in the key competences of reading, mathematics and science.

READ MORE: SNP accused of being 'in denial' on Scotland's education record over PISA results

A smug, patronising response

After Gove became Education Secretary for England in 2010, he identified much the same problem in graphic terms. "In effect,” he said, “rich thick kids do better than poor clever children when they arrive at school [and] the situation as they go through gets worse.”

Then comes the differential. Gove, the Tory, set about building a consensus for reform which challenged that pre-ordained state of affairs. Sturgeon and her procession of education ministers (including Swinney and three current members of his Cabinet) brushed aside evidence while mouthing complacent platitudes.

These depths were surely plumbed this week by the current incumbent, Mairi McAllan, when she excused the PISA rankings on grounds that, while many of our children can barely read, write or count, we’re top of the class in “artistic expression, problem solving, moral education”.

These assertions are utterly unproven while the idea they would compensate for the PISA messages is smug and patronising. Anyone who harbours hope of a reforming Education Secretary in the Scottish Government being spurred into action can abandon it now.

And that really is a big part of the problem – the quality and motivation of those who are paid to drive policy and priorities. Gove recognised the scale of his problem and, maybe counter-intuitively in some eyes, set out on a determined course to drive standards up. It is not necessary to admire every aspect of his reforms in order to recognise that, in relative terms, they worked.

READ MORE: Comparing pupils in 2009 and 2025 reveals how the SNP have ruined Scottish education

Gove’s moral compass

Gove is a complex character and some of his politics, notably on Brexit, have been awful. But neither has he forgotten where he came from; nor did his own moral compass allow him to ignore the fact that the most obvious victims of a struggling education system are those at the bottom of the socio-economic pile. So he acted and took the flak.

I don’t really care where Scotland takes its ideas from. If the English comparator is too strong a pill to swallow, then look elsewhere. Ireland, for example, is doing pretty well by PISA standards. All societies are facing similar challenges, so learn from somewhere that is meeting them better than we are. Empower our schools to do the job they want to deliver.

Let me dip into a little personal history. In 1997, I became Scottish education minister in the pre-devolution Scottish Office. I brought no education background but I did have one big idea based on wider experience. It was to make early intervention in young children’s education our number one priority.

This was not just about short-term gains, though it made a huge difference for teachers at that time. It was also in recognition of a desperate need to address inter-generational disadvantage which, without major intervention, becomes even more deeply embedded and self-perpetuating. In Scotland, we actually got in first before England’s successful Sure Start programme.

Some civil servants hated it because it was resource intensive which meant less for favoured areas of education spending – mainly universities. But I believed then, as now, that without throwing the kitchen sink at early intervention, wrapped round home and school, a substantial proportion of Scotland’s children are condemned to under-achievement and worse – from which basic life skills like literacy and numeracy might then protect them.

READ MORE: SNP must abandon fantasy education policies and break nationalist taboo about learning from England

SNP’s focus on free tuition

Over the years, the emphasis on early intervention was steadily diluted and de-funded. When the SNP came in, their flagship education policy was free university tuition which was utterly irrelevant to the substantial section of society that has remained in an educational underclass.

In the big picture, nothing has changed. This week, we learned that half the secondary schools in Glasgow are employing primary teachers to help kids who cannot read, write or count. I guarantee you that if early intervention had been persisted with as the highest priority, Scottish schools, society and PISA rankings would be very different today.

Instead, we have schools which – despite the best efforts of teachers – have been dealt a curriculum that does not match the needs of their pupils and, in many cases, social circumstances which make their jobs more difficult by the year. Teacher recruitment is a major problem which places even greater strain upon delivery.

Meanwhile, for all the priority they were given, our universities are in their own kind of mess, teetering on the edge of financial crisis and more dependent for their fiscal futures on decisions taken in Beijing and Seoul than in Edinburgh. Further education, a vital lifeline for many, is desperately under-funded.

Michael Gove yesterday rubbed salt in the wound by offering assistance to the Scottish government to sort out education. Even if they decline without thanks, they must recognise that the alternative to radical reform is incremental decline, both relative and absolute.

Just look at these PISA graphs, Mr Swinney, and tell us – what is your ‘big idea’?