Study visits - aims and anticipated outcomes

What do study visits do for teachers?

The Scottish Government’s aim is to ensure that young people are outward looking with a strong sense of identity and Scotland’s place in the world.

This supports the 'Smarter' strategic objective which seeks to expand opportunities for Scots to succeed from nurture through to lifelong learning, ensuring higher and more widely shared achievements. One of the key principles of this objective, the International Perspective, has the following terms:

• The focus should be on Scotland and Scotland’s place in the world – challenging our ambitions against the achievement of other countries and aiming to have a confident sense of self.

• Learning in schools should promote an understanding of Scotland, our culture, heritage and history, our environment and our place in the world.

In this context, individual and group study visits widen teachers’ horizons by providing an opportunity to look closely at different approaches, reflect on their own practice, develop a global perspective and improve learning and teaching. 

Sharing experiences from study visits enables others to draw on the good practice for their own work and helps to benchmark Scottish education against international practices.

This principle also applies at a policy-making level, where international comparisons can provide us with a variety of data about policies, processes, systems and performance.  We already engage in many international surveys, for example PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS, and with many European and international bodies across the portfolio - from children’s wellbeing to higher and adult education. 

We have also commissioned specific international research such as the recent OECD review of the quality and equity of schooling in Scotland  and information sources such as the EU's Eurydice network are valuable when comparing our education system and policy developments with those of other European countries.