The Education (Scotland) Act 2016 ten years on

Blog series Social science

Author Susan Halstead, Subject Librarian (Social Sciences)

Education has long been recognised as a means of promoting social mobility and reducing inequality. A succession of acts passed in Scotland from the 19th century onwards were designed to improve the rights of children and improve levels of literacy.

The Argyll Commission was established in 1864 to investigate the state of Scottish education. It found that of the 500,000 children in need of education 200,000 were receiving it under ‘efficient conditions’, 200,000 in schools were of ‘doubtful merit’, and 90,000 received no education whatsoever. The result was the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act. Approximately 1,000 school boards were established, and education was made compulsory for all children from 5 to 13 years of age.

The reforms helped to improve the life chances for children who might otherwise have been denied access to fundamental skills. An ambitious programme of school building was launched, but the pressure to accommodate large numbers of pupils from the outset led to overcrowding in classrooms and placed considerable demands on teachers, as did the inspection system. As a result, children with learning difficulties were often neglected.

An emphasis on standardisation meant that pupils were discouraged from speaking Gaelic, which had been an integral part of local culture and a proudly celebrated element of Scottish identity, as evinced by the publication of scholarly works such as A Gaelic dictionary in two parts by Robert Archibald Armstrong (shelfmark 627.l.2).

It was not until the 1980s that the issue of Gaelic-medium education was fully addressed and the language restored to its rightful status. This anglicisation of Scottish education also led children to adopt a different mode of speech at school than they did at home. This sense of divided identity was described in Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classic novel of Mearns life in the early 20th century, Sunset Song (1932; 1971 ed. shelfmark 74/39353), where the young heroine Chris Guthrie feels her academic ambitions and love of learning to be part of the `English Chris’ and in conflict with her rural heritage. 

The Education (Scotland) Act 2016 expressly placed a duty on education authorities to promote and support Gaelic Medium Education (GME) and Gaelic Learner Education (GLE) and established a process for parents to request Gaelic Medium Primary Education (GMPE) for their children. It also addressed educational inequalities and introduced new statutory duties for local authorities to raise attainment, particularly for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. It extended rights to children aged 12 and over under the Additional Support for Learning Act and allowed them to make decisions about their own education.  It also included provisions for the registration of independent schools and the appointment of Chief Education Officers to enhance overall standards of education.

The Scottish Government made a strong commitment to strengthening children’s human rights, with the aim of making Scotland ‘the best place to grow up and bring up children’. The Education Act  introduced a raft of measures to boost the rights of children with additional support needs (ASN). The programme for government in Scotland, published in September 2020, included a commitment to incorporate the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scottish domestic legislation.

However, by the time that this document had been published children's education was hampered by severe restrictions on public gatherings. The Covid pandemic and the successive lockdowns which followed had widespread consequences. The closure of schools meant that parents throughout the UK had to reconcile the demands of working from home with providing support for children who were being taught online.

Sheila Riddell’s study of the rights of children from Gypsy/Traveller and Roma backgrounds in Scotland vividly illustrates the challenges faced by pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds during Covid.

The British Library is an ideal place to study the history and theories of education and access primary sources, empirical studies, meta-analyses and literature reviews. Our collections can help researchers design interdisciplinary approaches and incorporate insights from psychology, sociology and technology into their studies. Education reforms can be tracked using UK Parliamentary Papers, journal articles can be sourced via the Social Sciences Citation Index, and official publications, rare books and lists of  pamphlets can be found on our reference guide pages and A-Z list of electronic resources.

For more information on our collections please send you query to the reference enquiry team.