Subject Debate: Taking Scotland Forward

The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh): This afternoon’s business is the continuation of the debate on taking Scotland forward.

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14:20

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I join others in welcoming you to your post, Presiding Officer. I hope for a favourable disposition in all your decisions.

When I became a minister in 2007, one of the first events that I recall was the whole ministerial team sitting in Bute house listening to the then chief medical officer, Harry Burns, talking to us about the effect of poverty on very young children and how it would blight their existence throughout their lives. The new Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney, put early learning at the heart of his opening remarks. That chimes absolutely with what Harry Burns said to the ministerial team in 2007, which resonates with me to this day. If we do not get it right at the beginning, we sure as heck will get it wrong at the end. I very much welcome all the initiatives that there will be: initiatives to support mothers back to work, to support children before they get to school, and to increase investment in communities where there are particular needs because of social and economic circumstances.

Like John Mason, I will pursue one or two of my obsessions. I will continue from time to time to suggest to any education minister that the Trachtenberg system for mental arithmetic is worthy of further consideration. I was a pretty indifferent student at all levels of my studying. Fortunately, I was brought up in a house that was filled with books. Essentially, I am an autodidact—I am self-taught. I therefore have no one but myself to blame for my shortcomings.

I represent an area that has substantial rural communities. It is interesting to go round schools in those communities and to see how different they are from schools in urban communities. The relationship between teachers and their pupils is quite different—it is more intimate and there is more knowledge in both parties of what is going on. One of my standard questions when I am at a rural primary school is to ask everyone who has driven a tractor to put their hand up. The really good news is that in the majority of such cases, these days, more young girls in rural schools put their hands up than young men. That tells us about a good change in society.

I have longer-run experience of rural schools. My grandfather started teaching in a rural school in 1881 as a pupil teacher. He ended his career in 1926 in Peddieston school in the Black Isle. The world then was very different; even though there were more than 20 pupils there, it was a single-teacher school. My grandmother made soup for the pupils from the vegetables that the pupils themselves brought to the school. Infrastructure was very limited.

Today, schools are resourced in a very different way and work in very different buildings. Education is now not simply face-to-face, but can be online as well. That is important for rural communities and for tertiary education in those communities. That is why it is important that we get rural broadband up to the required speeds. I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to provide 100 per cent of premises in Scotland, including in rural areas, with broadband by the end of this parliamentary session. My wife in particular is looking forward to that—she reported to me yesterday that our broadband was running at 50Kbps.

It is also worth thinking about how important communication is more generally for rural communities. The Romans were a much more successful empire than the Greeks because they had an effective system of communication and the Greeks did not. The Romans could get a message from Londinium to Roma in 24 hours by a system of hilltop signalling. Thankfully, we have moved on a little bit from that, but we should remember that the first public access speech call across the Atlantic was made in 1957. That is within my living memory; I remember my father having to make a call across the Atlantic in 1958 in relation to a patient of his.

The number of my constituents who have tertiary educational qualifications is lower than that in most constituencies in Scotland. Historically, that has been for the good reason that lots of school leavers have been able to go straight into employment. However, in the future the world will be more difficult, and education will play an important role in helping people into new jobs and long-term employment. That is why I particularly welcome the substantial investment in the North East Scotland College in Fraserburgh. Its campus is gleaming and efficient and is ready for 21st century.

The number of apprentices at the college has risen dramatically because we are focusing on ensuring that the tertiary sector delivers people who are fit to work, which helps the economy and it helps individuals. Rural areas such as the one that I represent benefit particularly from the policies of this Government. Please keep it up, education secretary.

14:27