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The Curriculum for Excellence enables teachers to tailor the content of lessons to best suit learners in their particular circumstances. Within the broad general education there is the opportunity to teach the Holocaust, not only within social studies, but across the wider curriculum. There is also an opportunity to teach the Holocaust within the History qualifications in the senior phase.

Scottish Government does not hold information on the percentage of secondary school pupils who have received education on the Holocaust during the 2021-22 school year, however a wide range of resources are available for schools to promote learning and teaching about, and remembrance of, the Holocaust. These resources focus on the Holocaust but also promote awareness of Jewish people, culture and their contribution to society and address the issue of antisemitism in the world today. Professional learning to support teachers to embed Holocaust education across secondary schools in Scotland is also available, including a subsidised standalone Masters module on Citizenship and Holocaust Education.

PACE support is usually delivered face to face, often in an employer’s premises, in addition to support which is available through the PACE Helpline and through online resources. PACE webinars and pre-recorded content were a newly introduced service in 2021 to enhance online resources in response to restrictions on face to face support due to the pandemic and to enable PACE support to continue to be provided to individuals affected by redundancy. Clients who had engaged with these new services reported very high levels of satisfaction. However as reported in the PACE Client Experience Survey 2022, , approximately half of clients surveyed would prefer face-to-face service delivery (45% to 64% for each service).

Webinars are promoted in PACE materials and are available to book through My World of Work at . PACE Advisers promote the webinars and a promotional toolkit has also been produced and issued to key partners including DWP to enable information to be provided to relevant customers. Details of webinars are regularly promoted through SDS social media channels and feature as events during specific weeks, for example during Challenge Poverty Week (3-9 October) and during Scottish Careers Week (7-11 November). We will continue to promote the webinar programme widely as an additional PACE service for those clients who prefer to access support digitally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11654 on 9 November 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Curriculum for Excellence enables teachers to tailor the content of lessons to best suit learners in their particular circumstances. Within the broad general education there is the opportunity to teach the Holocaust both within the people, past event and societies section of social studies and across the wider curriculum. There is also an opportunity to teach the holocaust within the History qualifications in the senior phase.

The curriculum in Scotland is built around 4 central tenets, that young people will become successful learners, effective contributors, confident individuals, and responsible citizens. Enabling young people to develop into responsible citizens requires them to understand both modern day and historic discrimination. One way this is built into our social studies curriculum is through the requirement for learners to demonstrate the following experiences and outcomes:

• I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence.
• I can discuss the motives of those involved in a significant turning point in the past and assess the consequences it had then and since.
• Through researching, I can identify possible causes of a past conflict and report on the impact it has had on the lives of people at that time.
• Having critically analysed a significant historical event, I can assess the relative importance of factors contributing to the event.
• I can express an informed view about the changing nature of conflict over time, appreciate its impact and empathise with the experiences of those involved.

A wide range of resources are available for schools to promote learning and teaching about, and remembrance of, the Holocaust. These resources focus on the Holocaust but also promote awareness of Jewish people, culture and their contribution to society and address the issue of antisemitism in the world today. Professional learning to support teachers to embed Holocaust education across secondary schools in Scotland is also available, including a subsidised standalone Masters module on Citizenship and Holocaust Education.

There is no specific content embedded in the curriculum. Curriculum for Excellence is a flexible curriculum, which enables teachers to tailor the content of lessons to best suit learners in their particular circumstances

To find out more about what the Scottish Government is doing to teach Holocaust Education in schools, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11654 on 9 November 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Students in further or higher education currently experiencing financial hardship should apply to their college or university for support from Discretionary Funds. We have provided £16.8m in hardship funding for the current academic year to support higher education students experiencing financial hardship, in addition to free tuition in Scotland and a range of bursary support.

I have urged college and university principals to continue to prioritise hardship funds to students most in need, taking account the impact of rising energy bills.

The Scottish Government is committed to making Scotland's businesses, industries, regions, communities and public services more productive and innovative. Productivity growth is the means by which we will build a better society, through higher incomes and living standards, and a fairer, more resilient, wellbeing economy for Scotland. Scotland’s longer term productivity growth has already been outperforming the UK as a whole since the financial crisis, and the Scottish Government is already taking direct action and investing in key policy areas to promote productivity growth and support a wellbeing economy.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation’s third programme focuses on making Scotland’s businesses, industries, regions, communities and public services more productive and innovative. We will stimulate business growth by investing in innovation, expanding opportunities internationally and supporting businesses to benefit from the transformational opportunities of digitalisation. Productivity Clubs were launched in 2019 to establish informal networks supporting peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and learning, and nurturing opportunities for collaboration, and have since been expanded.

The 2022-23 Programme for Government commits to undertaking research and advice to improve workplace productivity and wellbeing, including on the delivery of a four-day working week pilot, and to ensure that digital and technological innovation is used as a key driver for improved productivity and work standards/conditions.

Section 34 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 is now in force, providing wider powers for local transport authorities to run their own buses. Additionally, secondary legislation to enable bus franchising and partnership options will be introduced before the end of 2023. These powers will complement and continue to build on the service improvements supported through the Bus Partnership Fund.

We recognise that not every local authority will want to run their own bus services, but the new powers enable them to determine what is best for their local areas. We will continue to work with local authorities as they explore the full range of options set out in the 2019 Act, including local authority-run bus services. Work is currently ongoing with local authorities and COSLA to determine how best to allocate funding in light of the emergency budget review.

The Scottish Government introduced the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to provide an enhanced suite of options for local transport authorities to improve bus services according to their local needs. Local Authorities now have the power to run their own bus services, and secondary legislation to enable bus franchising and partnership options will be introduced before the end of 2023.

It is important that the options within the Transport Act 2019 are fully explored to ensure they are appropriate for the area, and are sustainable for local authorities long term. As such, the Community Bus Fund aims to support local authorities to explore their powers under the Transport Act 2019, and enable options to be trialled on a smaller scale.