Scottish Government high level action plan in response to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

20: Education

Thematic tags

Education; Children’s rights; Childcare; COVID-19; Educational Attainment; Poverty; Culturally appropriate; Gypsy/Traveller; Disability; Migrants; Bullying and harassment; Non-discrimination

Concluding Observation 57a

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Guarantee high-quality and affordable early childhood education for all children […] especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Context

Our strategic early learning and school age childcare plan for Scotland sets out our vision for early learning and school age childcare, as well as our strategic priorities, and what families can expect from services. All local authorities have a duty to ensure that eligible children can access their entitlement of funded ELC. The National Standard for funded ELC makes clear that ELC settings must provide appropriate support, including making any reasonable changes to the care and learning environment, to ensure that children’s additional support needs are not a barrier to them accessing the full range of experiences.

Key Actions

We will review and refresh the strategic early learning and school age childcare plan for Scotland in 2026. This will reflect progress on commitments and possible next steps.

We expect to publish a full report on the ELC 1140 expansion evaluation for the period 2018-25 in early 2026. Data collection has been completed and concentrated primarily on being able to analyse outcomes by child poverty priority families, gender, age, area deprivation, and household income.

We continue to provide 1140 hours per year of funded ELC to all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds regardless of parents’ working status, putting children first. We continue to invest around £1 billion each year in funded ELC.

Concluding Observation 57b

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] adopt effective measures to mitigate learning opportunity loss in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular for disadvantaged children, and effectively prevent the further disruption of education.

Context

We recognise the ongoing impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on children and young people, including on their education and wider health and wellbeing. The COVID-19 Education Recovery Group was established in March 2020 to provide advice on education policy and delivery to ministers and local government leaders. In May 2020, we published the joint Strategic Framework for Reopening Schools and Early Learning and Childcare Provision, providing guidance on the potential requirement for a blended model of in school and at home teaching. Nearly 30 versions of this guidance were published over the ensuing months.

In October 2021 we published our COVID-19 Education Recovery Actions and Next Steps Plan, which summarised how we would plan to build on the innovation and strengths that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and incorporated key principles including diversity, equality and sustainability.

Following this, subsequent policy development and implementation at both local and national level is being done in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on children and young people. Scottish Ministers also have a duty under the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 to publish regular reports on how well prepared local authorities are to provide remote learning for children and young people, should that be required. The first report, published in May 2024, found that most local authorities have a contingency plan in place for remote learning and most confirmed that the potential for remote learning is on their local authority’s risk register.

Key Actions

We will publish an Early Years Speech and Language Action Plan for Scotland in December 2025. The plan seeks to address the growing level of concerns being reported about children’s speech and language development since the COVID-19 pandemic. This work directly contributes to mitigating learning opportunity loss by targeting the single largest domain of developmental delay, early communication, which disproportionately affects disadvantaged children. It will set out the practical steps that public services will take to build the confidence and capacity of families and staff to support children’s early speech and language development.

Over the next year we will deliver a number of actions to support schools, young people and their families. This includes work to improve recording and monitoring, develop new guidance on substance use and review national guidance on exclusions and attendance. A national marketing campaign will also be launched to support parents of children who are struggling with attendance.

Concluding Observation 57c

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments: Evaluate the impact of the existing programmes […] on improvement in the educational attainment gaps and adopt effective measures, with a view to raising the educational attainment levels of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from low-income families to promote social mobility.

Context

Scotland’s education system is being reformed to improve outcomes for learners of all ages, while ensuring that those delivering education in settings, schools and colleges are better supported. Our education reform programme has been informed by a series of independent reviews, which were published between 2021, 2023, and 2024. These reports detail the ways in which we could build on the strengths of the current system, for the betterment of children and young people, adult learners and practitioners.

As part of a commitment to empowerment for local planning and decision making, local authorities are required to set stretch aims for raising attainment and closing the poverty related attainment gap by 2025-26. Through attainment advisors assigned to each local authority, Education Scotland provide local authorities and schools with support and challenge in their work to close the poverty related attainment gap.

Key Actions

We have allocated £1 billion to the Scottish Attainment Challenge over the course of this parliamentary term. All 32 local authorities receive funding to support strategies for addressing the attainment gap and initiatives for care experienced children and young people. This funding finances a variety of positions, including nearly 700 teachers, family link workers, classroom assistants, speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, and school counsellors.

We are committing a further £29 million in 2025-26 for additional investment for additional support needs (ASN). This investment will include an allocation for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce and will enable us to build on the work being delivered through our Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

In May 2025 we published a report on our progress in meeting the key National Improvement Framework measures of the poverty-related attainment gap. This was accompanied by the Pupil Equity Funding report (May 2025) and School Survey report (August 2025) which include the views of children and young people and school leaders and wider staff.

Concluding Observation 57d

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Ensure that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, children with disabilities, migrant children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to quality education that is culturally appropriate and adapted to their needs.

Context

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 places duties on education authorities in Scotland to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils who may require additional support for learning, this includes Gypsy/Travellers, disabled children, migrant children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The needs of these groups are being carefully considered in our response to the Additional Support for Learning Review. We continue to work closely with local government partners through the Additional Support for Learning Project Board to deliver the remaining 26 actions in our Additional Support for Learning Action Plan by March 2026.

We are implementing the School Age Childcare Programme to design and pilot funded school age childcare services in selected communities throughout Scotland, including funding for specialist providers supporting children with complex additional support needs.

Key Actions

We are continuing to invest £15 million per year, helping local authorities to respond to the individual needs of children and young people who may require support adapted to their needs.

We have invested an additional £29 million in 2025-26 to support local and national programmes to improve the recruitment, retention and training of the ASN workforce to support children and young people with an additional support need.

As part of our work to implement the Improving the Lives of Scotland’s Gypsy/Travellers Action Plan, we are funding the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) £234,837 in 2025-26. STEP supports education leaders, practitioners and families to ensure that education is accessible for all children and young people from traditionally nomadic cultures in Scotland.

We are supporting staff to improve educational outcomes for Gypsy/Traveller children and young people, identifying and supporting community members and educators to work together to raise awareness of Gypsy/Traveller culture and build local relationships and trust.

We are supporting schools to be proactive in communicating with Gypsy/Traveller parents through the STEP School Pledge programme which includes establishing a named contact point in school to ensure that they have access to information and support at all stages of their children’s education. In addition, the STEP Starter Packs Programme is being extended and developed so every child is able to learn through play, offering the best start for going to school and improving opportunities throughout life.

Concluding Observation 57e

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments […] Take effective measures to ensure the protection of all children from bullying, including cyberbullying, and violence in schools and strengthen efforts to prevent those phenomena and promote understanding and tolerance.

Context

In November 2024, we published Respect for All our revised anti-bullying guidance for all adults working with children and young people. The guidance promotes a proactive and inclusive approach to preventing bullying, supporting all professionals and carers to foster environments where bullying cannot persist. The updated document also provides expanded guidance on prejudice-based bullying, emphasising that certain behaviours may constitute criminal offences, such as hate crimes, and should not be merely categorised as bullying.

We have published new and updated national guidance for schools on consequences, risk assessments, gender-based violence, bullying, mobile phones, restraint and seclusion, and racism and racist incidents.

Key Actions

We will develop additional guidance to supplement Respect for All, outlining how local authorities and schools should record and monitor bullying incidents by spring 2026.

In August 2024 we published a joint action plan with COSLA on Relationships and Behaviours in Schools. The plan outlines 20 strategic actions, including identifying effective, evidence based approaches to relationships and behaviour, reviewing all current procedures for incident reporting, including violent incidents, supporting children and young people in developing healthy relationships and positive behaviours, and empowering staff members.

Concluding Observation 57f

The Committee recommends that the State Party, along with the devolved governments: Take effective measures to eliminate discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes in educational materials and the school environment and ensure that educational institutions and teachers do not perpetuate such stereotypes, including through the provision of appropriate training programmes for teachers.

Context

Education Scotland’s Building Racial Literacy Programme promot es racial literacy in teachers and educators, helping to tackle the issue of race evasiveness amongst teachers. The ultimate goal of the programme is to make every educator in Scotland racially literate, effective at dealing with racism, and confident in leading anti-racism attitudes.

In March 2024 we published a national framework for schools to help tackle sexual harassment and gender based violence. This framework outlines measures for schools to address underlying causes of gender-based violence, including gender inequality, and describes actions to take in response to specific incidents.

Key Actions

We are working in collaboration with the Scottish Qualifications Authority as part of a review of history qualifications on how to embed an anti-racist and decolonised approach in the curriculum. This will form part of change within the wider reform of the curriculum and qualifications being implemented over the coming years.

We will publish wider guidance on developing a whole-school approach to preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents, following the publication of our June 2025 interim guidance on responding to racist incidents towards children and young people.

Since 2022 we have invested over £600,000 to support the creation of new resources for educators developed with anti-racism expertise. The Breaking the Mould anti-racism curriculum principles (2023) and the children’s anti-racism in education Calls to Action (2024) outline the scope of these initiatives. Resources for educators are being developed to address a range for curriculum areas.

We are funding Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) with over £71,000 in 2025-26 to expand its Digital Discourse Initiative (DDI), which helps schools teach students to assess sources, fact-check, and spot false or prejudicial conspiracy theories. The DDI includes an online teacher training module covering social media, disinformation, hate speech, extremism, radicalisation, strategies for countering disinformation, curriculum tools, and ways to address online hate with pupils.

We also continue to provide funding of £335,700 to TIE to support delivery of LGBTQI+ inclusive education in Scottish schools. This supports the implementation of our National Approach to LGBT inclusive education guidance for Scottish schools and teachers.