MINISTERIAL FOREWORD
According to John F Kennedy "our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource." This is as true now as it was when he said it. One of the central responsibilities for any Government is to ensure its education systems provide learning that helps citizens develop a wide range of skills for life and work. Education also plays a central role in improving life chances for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and learning in all its forms and settings has a wide reach. At one end of the spectrum, it helps those who are furthest from the labour market move towards employment; at the other, it develops high level skills and produces world leading research.
In Scotland, as elsewhere, an increasingly competitive global economy demands our people develop new and different skills. The financial difficulties we face as a result of the UK Government's contraction of public spending also means we have to make difficult decisions on how best to provide and deliver post-16 education in the future.
Our approach is to follow our own path, rejecting moves elsewhere in the UK for a wholesale transfer of the financial burden associated with learning from the state to the learner; instead, we want to deliver a unique Scottish solution. Our approach is one endorsed by the people of Scotland in their unequivocal decision to back our manifesto commitments.
During the last parliamentary session I consulted on our ambitions for higher education through ' Building A Smarter Future'[1]. Having listened to the feedback on the proposals and ideas in that paper, this pre-legislative paper sets out the next steps we will take to develop these proposals and how we intend to deliver our manifesto commitments within the context of a wider ambition for learners in Scotland.
It is now clear that if we are going to achieve real reform we cannot look at universities in isolation. For real change to happen, we must not only look at colleges, skills and training, as well but also at how all of these sectors interact - and crucially - how learners move between them. This element of our learning system, the positive link between school, training, college, university or work, is an enormously powerful force in delivering the capability that employers and the economy needs. However, here too, we need to revisit our expectations, recalibrating them to meet the reality we now face.
Reforms of the scale on which we are embarked must have a clear, overriding purpose. To that end, we are clear that meeting the needs of the learner is at the heart of all our proposals. Scotland's ability to flourish as a nation is dependent on its people and I am committed to ensuring that we help maximise each individual's potential.
To achieve these aims, I am working towards bringing legislation forward in the second half of next year which will underpin and facilitate our plans. This paper sets out what areas any Bill may cover in the context of our wider ambitions for reform.
My vision is of a post-16 education sector which plays a central role in improving people's life chances, delivering the best outcomes for learners; which supports and develops a world-class research capability; and which maximises its contribution to sustainable economic growth for Scotland.
This process is without doubt a challenging one. But, through it, we have the opportunity to effect profound and positive change. Thankfully we have strong foundations: the quality and productivity of Scottish research from our universities is ahead of the rest of the UK and USA in terms of citations per head of population; and the capacity we have built in to our further education sector - both in terms of the curricular offer and the college estate mean we are well placed. Reform will allow us to continue to improve the life chances of young Scots and maximise the return on our investment in post-16 education over the long term.
Our reforms will also make a significant contribution to the ambitions of this Government. Education, training and skills at all levels will support our policy ambitions in a range of areas from health and the environment to our Cities Strategy and our Economic Strategy.
This pre-legislative paper sets out the ambitious steps we want to take in partnership with the universities, colleges, training providers, staff, learners, trades unions, business and others to achieve this vision. I am ambitious for the people of Scotland and the proposals contained within this paper will ensure that those ambitions continue to be realised.