Anti-Racism in Education Programme

Overview

The Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP) is the Scottish Government's programme to embed anti-racism within Scottish education, addressing interpersonal; institutional and systemic racial inequality experienced by those with the protected characteristic of ‘race’ under the Equality Act 2010 including both visible and non-visible adversely racialised groups.

The work of the AREP is underpinned and guided by a clear national commitment, launched by the First Minister in January 2025, which states that: “Racism exists within our education system, interpersonally and institutionally. We commit to eradicating racism through our anti-racist actions and policies.”

The intended outcomes of the AREP are that:

• measures to address racism and embed anti-racist practice are identified and the system and individuals are supported to implement them;
• changes to policy and practice are made to ensure that an anti-racist approach is consistently taken across Scottish education and that a culture of racial literacy amongst all school staff and pupils is systemically embedded;
• an anti-racist approach is articulated in and embedding across the curriculum at local and national level;
• schools, teachers and the wider school community are supported to identify racism and racist incidents where they occur and to record and address them appropriately, and;
• adversely racialised groups and individuals have their voices heard and feed directly into decision making and delivery of anti-racist action

AREP was developed in partnership with education and equality stakeholders, including children and young people with lived experience of racism. It also takes an intersectional approach, cognisant of the different ways in which racism and discrimination manifest for those with intersecting characteristics.

The programme adopts the definition of race as defined in line with the Equality Act 2010 and as such includes both visible and non-visible adversely racialised groups.

Governance arrangements

The AREP is a programme of work delivered by a Board, chaired by Professor Khadija Mohammed. The Board and associated workstreams are populated by a range of sectoral representatives, educators and third sector organisations and experts. A full membership list can be found below under 'Members'.

Background and history of AREP

The Anti Racism in Education Programme (AREP) was established in response to:

• the significant amount of correspondence received by the Deputy First Minister as part of the Black Lives Matter movement and 
• recommendations made by the COVID-19 Ethnicity Expert Group, seeking to include the teaching of black history in the curriculum

This programme was formerly known as the Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education Programme (REAREP).

At the end of 2020, officials in Learning Directorate, Education Scotland and the Equality Unit undertook a series of engagement sessions with education and race equality stakeholders to gain a better understanding of what the challenges are in terms of race inequality and racism in schools. At the beginning of 2021, the Deputy First Minister and the Minister for Older People and Equality met a number of stakeholders in order to listen to their suggestions for addressing race inequality in schools.  

Remit

The Anti-Racism in Education Programme has been established with the central aims of:

• identifying measures which will address race inequality which remains evident in schools
• working with marginalised groups and individuals to ensure that young people from all minority ethnic backgrounds who experience race inequality, have their voices heard and can feed in to the decision making and implementation of this group’s objectives
• advising on potential changes in practice and also on concrete short, medium and long term actions to support the desired outcome, which is that as a result of an anti-racist approach and a culture of racial literacy amongst all school staff and pupils, no minority ethnic child, young person, teacher or member of staff will experience race inequality in a school setting
• the group will be an action and outcomes focussed one, examining the key drivers of systemic race inequality in schools, how barriers which still exist can be removed and how good practice can be built upon

You can read about the work of the four subgroups using the following links:

• curriculum reform sub-group 
• racism and racist incidents sub-group
• diversity in the teaching profession and education workforce sub-group
• education leadership and professional learning sub-group

Related work 

There are a number of pre-existing work strands which tie in to this work including:  

• The Integration of UNCRC in to Scots Law
• The Race Equality Framework for Scotland 2016 to 2030
• The Race Equality Action Plan 2017 to 2021 
• Race Equality: Immediate Priorities Plan
• Diversity in the teaching profession working group
• A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22

Members

• Professor Khadija Mohammed, Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators (SAMEE), Chair
• Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce (DiTPEW) subgroup Co-Chairs
• Education Leadership and Professional Learning (ELPL) subgroup Co-Chairs
• Curriculum Reform subgroup Co-Chairs
• Racism and Racist Incidents (RRI) subgroup Co-Chairs
• Education Scotland
• Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE)
• Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)
• General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Coalition for Race Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Volunary Sector Organisations Scotland (CEMVO)
• Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) BAME Network
• Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Education Reform Directorate, Scottish Government
• Emma Bunting, Equality in Education, Scottish Government
• Anisa Omar, Equality in Education, Scottish Government
• Catherine Law, Equality in Education, Scottish Government (Secretariat)

Publications

Anti-Racism in Education Programme: terms of reference