Education (Scotland) Bill: call for written submissions

Date: 14th April 2015
Category:

The Scottish Parliament's Education and Culture Committee has launched a call for written submissions on the Scottish Government's Education (Scotland) Bill.

The Committee would like to hear your views on the Bill or any particular part of it.

According to the Scottish Government Policy Memorandum, the Bill's aims include, to:

• Promote equity of attainment for disadvantaged children and take steps towards narrowing the attainment gap by imposing duties on education authorities and the Scottish Ministers in relation to reducing pupils' inequalities of educational outcome together with a duty to report on progress; and
• Extend rights under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 (as amended) to children aged 12 and over with capacity.

The call for written submissions contains a list of possible questions for you to answer and provides information on how to respond. Please note that the final deadline for making a submission is Monday 18th May 2015.

Oral evidence

The Committee will take oral evidence on the Bill from Scottish Government officials on Tuesday 28th April.

• Find out more here.

In 2008, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that UK governments "Continue and strengthen its efforts to reduce the effects of the social background of children on their achievement in school.'

Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires State Parties to recognise the right of every child to education, with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity.

• Find out more about children's rights to education inTogether's State of Children's Rights report 2014.