YOU always hesitate to comment on Scottish education when you have no school age children, but how our system works – or doesn’t – impacts on all of our futures.

So we all have a stake in looking at the implications of the OECD report on the way our school curriculum is designed and how we assess those who go through primary and secondary options.

First, the good news: the Curriculum for Excellence, which so often takes a battering, often from folk who haven’t bothered to read anything about its aims and ambitions, gets good marks from this report card.

It says, in terms, that this is a curriculum which chimes with the needs of 21st century children and their prospective employers down the line.

The CfE had godparents in two of Scotland’s largest political parties, having been devised by one, and delivered by another, so I don’t believe it’s ever been an ideological prisoner.

It’s worth reminding ourselves of that original vision: “All children are entitled to experience a coherent curriculum from 3 to 18...to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need…to think critically and flourish in today’s world.”

READ MORE: What does the scrapping of the SQA mean for your children?

And the desired outcomes aren’t to be idly dismissed either: “Successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, effective contributors.” What’s not to like, as the kids say.

However where this plan seems to have unravelled is in the senior years of secondary schooling, when the envisaged flexibility runs into an examination structure geared to teaching to the tests.

I’ve never been much of a fan of exams or testing, which have always seemed too blunt an instrument with which to judge pupil progress. And ironically the shake-up caused by Covid has thrown much more emphasis on the teachers’ own assessments of work and effort over the terms.

Most academics and teachers don’t seem to mourn the upcoming the demise of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which devised the exams system, or the shake-up in Education Scotland, which may no longer be in charge of inspections.

The less bureaucracy, the more transparency, and the greater independence of mind is all to the future good.

The worry of course, as with any major revision of the status quo, is that there is always one generation on whom this is visited at an absolutely critical juncture in their educational journey.

The children facing major exams and assessments this year and next must be protected from being collateral damage from the upcoming changes.