Over the first few weeks of this election year, I’ve made it my priority to focus on state school education in Scotland. There is plenty going right in our classrooms, and I applaud the work of teachers, teaching assistants and local authority workers.
I do think, however, that the education system we are used to in Scotland is in need of a reboot.
Over these last few weeks, we’ve discovered numerous examples of areas where things aren’t going right.
Scottish teacher numbers are down, but last week we found out 100 Scottish graduates headed to England last year because they were attracted by an innovative scheme known as Teach First, which is designed to persuade the brightest and best graduates to become teachers.
Unfortunately, it’s not available here. So students from Scottish universities have now gone to teach down south.
Then this week, more digging by our parliamentary team looked into school inspections.
And in a parliamentary answer to my Mid-Scotland and Fife colleague Liz Smith, we found that the number of schools inspected was 137, down from 491 a decade earlier.
This prompted one former education director in Scotland to warn that the inspections regime in the country was now “virtually useless”.
This is deeply concerning. I know of parents who feel they aren’t getting enough information when it comes to their local school.
As the recent OECD report into Scottish education stated: “Current national assessment arrangements do not provide sufficiently robust information, whether for system-level policy-making or for local authorities or an individual school.”
I think that’s wrong, and I don’t think parents should have to accept it.
The truth of the matter is this: the SNP have been in charge of our schools for the past nine years and the legacy they leave behind isn’t good enough.
We are now in a position where teacher numbers have fallen year on year, rates of literacy and numeracy are on the wane and Scotland is being outstripped in international league tables.
In other words, significant challenges remain. To solve them will require a lot more than the good intentions of Nicola Sturgeon and her education secretary.
It’s time for an altogether more ambitious approach to Scottish education; one that takes new proposals seriously and is not prepared to accept the prevailing consensus.
It’s not as if there aren’t good ideas out there.
Take the parents from St Joseph’s Primary in Milngavie, who have twice asked the First Minister to help them save their school by allowing them to opt out of local authority control.
I want to see more initiatives like this and a Scottish Government that is prepared to give parents a greater say in their children’s education.
It’s time to have the courage of our convictions and create an education system that is both world leading and intellectually self-confident enough to embrace reform.
The measures we called for such as a drive to improve standards in writing and reading, the channelling of money directly to head teachers, greater transparency when it comes to assessing our schools aren’t ideas of the left or right, they are common sense proposals aimed at delivering higher standards for all.
But let’s face it, improving public services has never been the driving force of this government.
That, from day one, has been independence and independence alone.
Senior SNP ministers have admitted as much.
Kenny MacAskill, the former justice secretary, revealed that the Scottish Government’s position on prisoner votes was created “to avoid any needless distractions in the run-up to the referendum” and to dodge headlines that “could tarnish the bigger picture”.
That bigger picture was, of course, an independent Scotland. And in chasing that dream, the SNP took their eye off the ball.
Their priority wasn’t your school, it was severing Scotland from the rest of the UK.
We can’t afford a repeat performance. Our pledge is that every Scottish Conservative MSP elected in May will demand that Scottish ministers focus on the day job.
Top of this list is ensuring that your local school meets the standards we all reasonably expect.
As I say, it’s election year. And what I want to see is a government in Scotland that’s focused on improving your school, not planning how best it can take us back to another referendum.