17. Cultural Pride Protected 🟢

Education and the historic environment are devolved. The Curriculum Improvement Cycle will replace Experiences and Outcomes with a Know–Do–Understand model from August 2028. National 5 and Higher English already require a Scottish set text. Arts and Culture in the 2026–27 Budget is £266.3 million; Historic Environment and Architecture is £72.3 million. The constraint is design and distribution, not a lack of legal tools.

Current reality

Legal and institutional position

School education, qualifications, Education Scotland, and the curriculum framework are Scottish. History sits in Social Studies under “People, past events and societies.” Curriculum for Excellence is non-prescriptive: schools and authorities decide time, sequence and depth. There is no statutory national canon that every pupil must complete.

English is different. The Scottish set text is the only compulsory literary element at National 5 and Higher. The list was revised for 2025–26 after consultation; first assessments under the new list are in 2026. The rest of the course remains open.

Culture, national collections, museums policy and the historic environment are devolved. National Museums Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, the National Library, Historic Environment Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland and Creative Scotland are funded through the Scottish Budget. Local-authority and independent museums sit on council lines, lottery, trading and volunteers.

Broadcasting and some UK-wide lottery rules sit outside this item. They are not required to change a social-studies framework or a heritage grant.

The latest official numbers

Curriculum.
CIC: ten-year programme; classroom adoption from August 2028. Draft KDU models for the eight curriculum areas scheduled September–November 2026; finals January 2027. Education Scotland has already issued early samples. A March 2026 CIC Social Studies evidence paper records uneven time, variable primary–secondary progression, and inconsistency in historical knowledge.

Qualifications.
Scottish contexts are offered at National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher History. They are elective. A pupil can leave school without a Scottish history course. Advanced Higher Scottish fields remain a minority of options.

Budget 2026–27 (Level 2 / Level 3).
Arts and Culture: £266.3 million (2025–26 ABR £238.4 million; 2024–25 outturn £192.6 million). National Cultural Collections: £111.3 million. Creative Scotland: £100.7 million. Historic Environment and Architecture: £72.3 million (down from £76.1 million). National Records of Scotland: £42.7 million. The Budget text states an increase of more than £70 million a year on 2023–24 culture spend, on a stated path toward an extra £100 million a year by 2028–29. The Art Works collections hub: £11.65 million in 2026–27.

Heritage grants.
HES: about £12.4 million awarded in 2024–25; applications for future work about £17.8 million. Maximum Historic Environment Grant raised from £500,000 to £750,000 from 1 April 2026. HES reports £5.24 of other money for each £1 of its grant. Museum Futures: £4 million Scottish Government programme, continued in the 2026–27 Budget.

How it is experienced in daily life

One primary builds a chronological Scottish sequence with the local museum. The next treats 1314, 1746 and a topic week. A Higher candidate must answer on a Scottish text and may never take History. A national museum has a rising grant-in-aid line. A volunteer-run local museum faces energy, stone, and insurance costs amid a council cut. HES will pay a larger maximum grant; it will not pay every application.

How it got here

Curriculum for Excellence traded a prescribed syllabus for professional autonomy. That produced local strength and national unevenness. The OECD 2021 review asked for a systematic review cycle; CIC is that cycle. English kept a Scottish text because assessment could require one. History never did. Heritage funding rose at national collections while the Historic Environment Level 2 line fell in 2026–27 as HES was expected to grow commercial income. Local museums were left on a different financial planet.

What has already been tried, and what that showed

A compulsory Scottish text in English is workable and can be refreshed. Elective Scottish history options do not give every pupil the same foundation. Grant-in-aid uplifts reach the bodies named in the Budget. They do not automatically reach most sites by number. Raising the HES cap recognises construction inflation; demand still exceeds the pot. Museum Futures exists because a 2024 sector survey found organisations at risk of closure.

What needs to happen

The improvement in measurable terms

• A published KDU social-studies core that specifies Scottish periods and evidence skills every learner meets in the broad general education, without deleting local, British or world study.
• Senior-phase History specifications that make a Scottish context normal, not optional by default.
• Teacher subject knowledge, especially for less-taught centuries, supported by resources and in-service time.
• Heritage spend that can be traced from national lines to local fabric, education outreach and climate adaptation.
• Publish grant outturn versus applications as a routine series.

Sequence

Use the 2026 draft KDU window. Finalise in January 2027. Train through 2027–28. Teach from August 2028. Do not write a 2027 checklist that schools cannot resource. On heritage, set multi-year grant envelopes before announcing new capital.

Workforce, capital and standards

Primary teachers who are not history specialists. Conservation trades. Museum educators who can match the new core. Stone, timber and collections already deteriorating. Match-funding rules that smaller trusts cannot meet.

What would count as success in twelve months?

• Social Studies KDU draft that a hostile reader can see contains specified Scottish knowledge, not only “heritage” as a value
• A plan for 2026–27 in-service days actually used on that content
• HES and MGS grant awards versus applications for 2025–26
• Museum Futures spend against the £4 million line
• No claim that a set-text list is the same as a history curriculum

What can be done under current powers

Who holds the lever

Scottish Ministers and Education Scotland: CIC and guidance. Qualifications Scotland: course specifications. Local authorities and schools: timetable. HES, MGS and the national collections: grant and buildings. Councils: most local museums.

The statute, budget or direction

Education statutes; CIC programme; SQA/Qualifications Scotland course rules; Budget Level 2 and 3; HES grant directions.

What is already possible and unused

A clearer BGE knowledge sequence inside KDU. Alignment of National History options. Shared museum–school resources against that sequence. Multi-year HES and MGS settlements. Distribution rules so National Cultural Collections uplifts do not stop at four institutions.

What would still be true if management improved tomorrow

Not every pupil takes History after BGE. Buildings still weather. Volunteers still carry small sites. A compulsory core can be taught badly. Culture still competes with health and housing in the same Budget.

Where the limits are

Law and reserved powers

None that block a Scottish history core or heritage grant. Broadcasting is reserved and is not this item.

Money

£266.3 million for Arts and Culture is already a large rise. An extra £100 million a year by 2028–29 is a stated government path, not a free residual. Historic Environment fell in the same Budget. Local museums live on a different ledger.

Workforce and capital

Teacher knowledge, conservation labour, and the time between a January 2027 framework and August 2028 classrooms.

Time, geography, UK-wide systems

Rural and island sites have higher unit costs (item 16). Climate already acts on coastal fabric.

Political difficulty, kept separate from legal impossibility

Any specified core will be read as a political syllabus. That is a design and consultation problem. It is not a reserved-power problem.

What is not yet known

The September 2026 Social Studies KDU draft. How much specified Scottish history it will contain. 2025–26 HES grant spend versus the £12.4 million 2024–25 figure. Whether the Historic Environment line falls again as commercial income is assumed to rise. How many local museums close or merge.

Honest summary

Achievable now. Write Scottish historical knowledge into the KDU social-studies draft. Keep and maintain the English set-text rule. Publish heritage grant demand against supply. Use Museum Futures and HES grants as the local channel.

Only partly achievable. Identical depth in every classroom. Every deferred repair completed in one Budget. A senior-phase History uptake of 100 per cent.

Would require reserved change. Not this item.

Colour mark: green. Curriculum and heritage spend are already Scottish. The live CIC is the delivery window. Green is not a claim that variation has ended, or that £72.3 million Historic Environment equals the repair backlog.

What this item does not settle. It does not choose a single national story. It does not treat literature and history as interchangeable. It does not convert HES leverage ratios into GDP. It does not make “pride” a measurable outcome; knowledge, access and fabric condition are.

The test is whether the 2028 social-studies framework states what every pupil should know about Scotland’s past, and whether the next two Budgets move money to the sites and classrooms that have to teach and keep it.

Connection

Item 6 is the same CIC and the same teacher-knowledge constraint. Item 16 is rural site cost and visitor economies. Public finances decide whether the culture uplift continues while the historic-environment line falls. The Independence Debate is not required.

People’s Future Scotland