Scottish Government

Fiona Laing

Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective

This policy review was commissioned by the Scottish Government. The agreed purpose was to inform the ongoing development of education policy, practice and leadership in Scotland, by providing an independent review of the direction of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and emerging impacts seen in quality and equity in Scottish schooling. It focuses especially on the cycles corresponding to Broad General Education (BGE, i.e. up to student age 15) with the brief being to:

  • Highlight key impacts of the approach taken to developing the curriculum to date.
  • Analyse key aspects of education policy and practice in Scotland, and integrate insights from PISA and other evidence from different countries/regions.
  • Highlight areas where further change or development could add value to an ongoing programme of educational improvement.

There will be an Scottish Government debate in the Scottish Parliament  on the 12th January 2016

  Delivering a world-class education system

Fiona Laing

Designing content for mygov.scot – feedback requested

In 2012, the Scottish Government set out its intention to deliver a “single – but not exclusive – point of entry to all digital public services at national and local level”.

This blog post from Mygov.scot describes how they are engaging with users to ensure that their product meets users needs.

“We want to make sure citizens don’t need to think about organisations to deal with their complex needs”

Send them your feedback to ensure they can accomplish this.

JA Condie

Scottish Government website switches to www.gov.scot

via: the Scottish Government Newsroom 

Scottish Government website switches to new address

Scottish GovernmentThe Scottish Government has adopted http://www.gov.scot/ as its primary web address to take advantage of the new .scot top level domain.

More than 8,000 domains have been sold to individuals and groups since they went on sale last September. The new .scot domain aims to promote Scottish identity, culture and economic opportunity on the internet across the world.

The previous address – http://www.scotland.gov.uk/ – will continue to take users to the site and other established links will operate as normal.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said:

“Using the .scot domain as our primary web address will be a visible symbol of the Scottish Government’s online presence and our involvement with the worldwide family of Scots who choose to express their identity or affinity online.

“The expansion of the number of top-level internet domains in recent times gives users many more options to brand themselves in new ways online – and we’re delighted to lead by example.

“Users will see the new web address on our site straight away but other changes to the infrastructure, including new email addresses for Scottish Government staff, will be introduced in a phased and structured way to ensure no one is inconvenienced.”

The .scot domain is one of hundreds to go live on the internet in the last year, adding diversity as alternatives to the most common domains such as .com, .net, and .org. At least 1,300 will be added over the next few years.