Teachers are to receive extra training to help prepare them for the introduction of a new school curriculum, education secretary Fiona Hyslop today said.

In addition to the extra year for preparation for Curriculum for Excellence, councils will be allowed to provide an extra day in service specifically devoted to the new curriculum, she told Parliament.

It came as MSPs debated the new national qualifications being proposed by the government, including the replacement of Standard Grades with a new general qualification.

Ms Hyslop said that the new curriculum and the exams that will accompany them had been delayed a year in response to concerns from teachers.

"To support this work and recognising the importance of successful implementation, in addition to existing inservice days and CPD which should increasingly focus on Curriculum for Excellence, I am pleased to announce that we will be providing one extra in-service day this school year and for the next two school years," she told MSPs.

"This will give an additional three extra in-service days to help teachers implement Curriculum for Excellence."

The introduction of the general qualification will now be 2014, a year later than originally proposed.

The certificates will be tested in fourth year with an exam and assessment of general work throughout the year.

The proposal for a new exam was announced in April.

Compulsory qualifications for numeracy and literacy will also be introduced although Highers and will remain the "gold standard" in the education system.

Labour education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin welcomed the proposal to create national qualifications in literacy and numeracy, but said it cannot be looked at in isolation.

"We need clear leadership from the minister on this issue," she said.

Ms Brankin backed the decision to delay the new qualifications by a year, accepting that the change was "too important to rush".

She added: "Teachers aren't adverse to changes in education and heaven knows there has been plenty of that over the past 20 years and I certainly, in my time in education, have been involved in many of those changes.

"But teachers want to understand it and to be convinced that the changes are do-able and are going to actually improve education for young people."

The Labour MSP said that there are "widespread cuts" in education budgets and professional development for teachers was often the first casualty.

She called on Ms Hyslop to set out how much funding had been put into continuing professional development to implement the Curriculum for Excellence.

"It's simply not good enough to say it's up to local authorities," Ms Brankin said.

"Teachers and parents are looking for leadership, not abdication on this issue."

Tory education spokeswoman Liz Smith told MSPs exam reform posed a three-fold challenge - keeping the successful parts of the present system, retaining the confidence of teachers and employers, and not repeating the mistakes of 1992.

"Then, following what was widely regarded as a top-class blueprint for reform produced by Professor Howie, political dogma - chiefly the obsession with comprehensive education in late secondary schools - got in the way," she said.

"We ended up with a half-way house that did no one, least of all our pupils, any favours."

She went on to put forward three proposals.

There should be "some nationally recognised tests" to measure the ability of primary seven youngsters to read, write and count properly, as this was too late at S3 or S4 level.

"That does not necessarily mean through formal exams or with certification, but it must meet national criteria, perhaps as a key component of the three to 18 programme," she said.

The second proposal was to learn the lesson of 1992 and provide vocationally-focussed opportunities for older pupils, along the lines offered by other European countries.

The third was to ensure that the system catered properly for the brightest pupils, by letting them by-pass S4 exams and take two years to study Highers instead of "the hated two-term dash" in S5.

And she told MSPs: "Is is not very sad when some of our brightest pupils find they cannot access Advanced Higher level because their school cannot offer these courses because of budget cuts - or because political dogma in some cases will not allow them to take advantage of the facilities offered sometimes in the private sector where these subjects can be taught?

"And that process should be reversed - why is it the case that private sector school children should not go into the state sector?

"We must enter a different ideology about shared resources."

For the Liberal Democrats, Margaret Smith said much of the government proposals needed more clarity and more work with the organisations involved.

"If I was a teacher marking this, I'd be inclined to hand back Fiona's project and say it's half finished and more work needs to be done but she's got some good ideas," she told MSPs.

"She will have our support to be a job finisher in this regard."

The challenge was to deliver a "robust and credible" qualifications system which reflected the new, broader learning of the curriculum for excellence.

"I had some concerns about the suggestions that the number of subjects to be studied in S4 would be limited to five," she said.

"The cabinet secretary has clarified that".

But she said the debate had failed to engage parents, who found the present system of standard and intermediate qualifications confusing.

And the government would face problems if it pushed ahead with changes that were not supported by teaching unions, who had concerns about potential workload, assessments, and about the consultation process.

She warned the changes would demand resources at a time when councils, colleges and schools were facing tough spending decisions.

And she told MSPs: "There is unanimous agreement that we need to improve our record on literacy and numeracy.

"However it's not going to be addressed by an additional couple of exams at the end of third year.

"It has to be about early intervention and continual assessment."

Labour's Claire Baker suggested there were other educational issues that could have been debated today.

She said: "Given we still await the final conclusions of the consultation responses, today seems strange timing for a debate.

"I can understand why the cabinet secretary may not wish to debate other pressing education issues, particularly on this the first day back, such as university funding, student hardship, probationary teachers or her failure to deliver on promises on class sizes.

"But to have a debate on proposals which have yet to fully complete the consultation process does seem a bit mistimed."

The Labour MSP also questioned whether the government had committed sufficient resources for the new curriculum.

She said: "A number of the proposals are sound and I do believe the ambition is there to improve Scotland's curriculum.

"But there are concerns over the reality of implementation. I have genuine fears the cabinet secretary could fumble this once in a generation opportunity and these years of hard work by not ensuring sufficient resources."

She added: "It is not wishful thinking that will deliver the Curriculum for Excellence. To see the ambitious overhaul of Scotland's curriculum that we want to see the Scottish Government must come forward with the resources."

But Ms Hyslop insisted despite a "tight" funding settlement from Westminster the Scottish Government had given a "record level of funding" to councils.

And with much of the money for education coming from local authorities, Ms Hyslop stressed: "There is a record level of funding for education, but we expect that to be applied to education as it has been previously."