WIREDGOV

Education Secretary to address Education World Forum.

Education Secretary Angela Constance will set out the successes of Scottish education to an audience of international education leaders today (Monday) in London.

At the 2016 Education World Forum, Ms Constance will outline that raising attainment, closing the attainment gap, improving health and wellbeing and improving employability are all key priorities if greater equity and excellence is to be achieved in Scottish education.

As part of two days of engagements in London, Ms Constance will also meet with representatives of other countries including India, Pakistan, Sweden and Finland at the Forum, which is an annual event to discuss education's role in addressing social, economic and global challenges. The visiting delegations from India and Pakistan will also be welcomed in Scotland later this month, supported by the British Council.

Ahead of her address today, Ms Constance is also visiting John Ball Primary School, a school in Blackheath which has demonstrated positive recent results in working to close the attainment gap.

Ms Constance said:

“The Education World Forum marks the largest gathering of education and skills ministers in the world, and I look forward to taking this opportunity to outline our approach and achievements, at an exciting time for Scottish education. In addition to learning about successful approaches in other countries, I welcome the opportunity for others to learn from our approaches in Scotland.

“We want all of our young people to develop the confidence and skills they need to succeed in an increasingly globalised world. While there are many successes in Scottish education, including excellent teaching, record Higher and Advanced Higher results and more than nine in ten school-leavers securing jobs, training or continued education, we need to do more to ensure that our education system works for every child.

“Achieving equity and excellence for every child is key to delivering that aim. The new National Improvement Framework will ensure that better information about children’s progress is available to teachers, parents and policy-makers – to support learning and inform on-going work to close the attainment gap. This follows the recent OECD Review report into Scottish education, which was positive about work being led to improve equity and excellence in our schools.”

“Scotland has rightly earned a strong international reputation for high quality education and we will continue to look at the best evidence of what works in making the right improvement, to ensure our education system works for every child.”