Informed Scotland Dec20/Jan21 – COVID-19 impact, support & recovery
Issue 87 includes key announcements and guidance up to and including 12 February.
This edition of Informed Scotland is the biggest ever published, summarising an incredibly busy, productive couple of months for learning & skills. Hard to fathom, when so many are achieving all this from home, and when every day feels pretty similar to the one before!
Numerous new courses were announced and resources launched, as organisations and individuals across the landscape work incredibly hard to provide support for learners and educators in all sectors and at every stage.
Many interesting, important and/or informative reports were published. Not all of them are COVID-19 driven, such as Skills Development Scotland’s first Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan, reminding us that there are other issues needing urgent attention, too.
Here are a few of the other reports worth highlighting:
- The Scottish Government’s 2021 National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan for schools
- The General Teaching Council for Scotland’s revised Professional Standards for teachers
- The second formal report from the International Council of Education Advisers
- The Scottish college of the future by the Commission on the College of the Future
- QAA’s report on How UK higher education providers managed the shift to digital delivery
- An interim report on the Impact on fair access to HE by the Commissioner for Fair Access
- A report on The value of volunteering in schools and colleges by Education & Employers and CIPD
- ILM’s report on management and leadership skills during the pandemic
- Equate Scotland’s COVID-19 impact report on the experiences of women in STEM, including students
- The OECD’s Lessons for education from COVID-19, from primary to tertiary
- What happened to the COVID cohort? with lessons for 2021 by UCAS
- And a Youth Work Skills Framework from YouthLink Scotland.
A few themed weeks are coming up: Cyber Scotland Week is 22–28 February, Scottish Apprenticeship Week is 1–5 March, and the first ever SCQF Week is 15–19 March.
On the subject of events: Our popular Learning & Skills Events Calendar has been in limbo since the first lockdown in March 2020 when all events were cancelled or moved online. I’m considering when to restart it – either now, for major online events, or wait until the time when face-to-face events can begin to resume. Would you find it useful now? I’d be really interested to hear your views – via @InformedScot on Twitter, or email [email protected]
This is the tip of the information iceberg: become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a copy of the latest issue.