Shirley-Anne Somerville has been appointed Education Secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet reshuffle, taking over the troubled brief from John Swinney.
Somerville is promoted having been Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People.
Nicola Sturgeon was forced to inform the Dunfermline MSP of her role in government over Zoom.
She has been forced to self-isolate after one of her family member was placed in self-isolation.
She takes over education at a crucial juncture as pupils prepare for a second year of school exams under covid conditions.
Scottish Labour had called for Swinney to be replaced as education secretary, accusing him of having “accrued a litany of failures to his name”.
Swinney was appointed to the education brief after the 2016 election, as part of Sturgeon’s pledge to make closing the attainment gap between pupils from more and less affluent areas her “number one priority”.
However there were a number of controversies over schooling during including the handling of the cancelled exam diet in 2020.
The findings of an OECD review of Scotland’s education system is expected to be published next month.
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