Young carers need our support
Last week in parliament, I highlighted some of the excellent work that Renfrewshire Carers Centre organises with young carers across the region.
Young carers in school can often feel isolated, struggle with bullying and teachers may not understand that they cannot complete their homework or arrive on time because of their caring responsibilities.
To change that, Renfrewshire Carers Centre facilitates peer support groups in schools and conducts awareness-raising training for teachers.
I asked the Cabinet Secretary about how the Scottish Government can support organisations that provide vital support to our young carers and help them get the education they deserve. All children and young people deserve the same opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential.
Mismanagement of Scotland’s education
Audit Scotland revealed last week that funding for Scotland’s universities has faced a 12 per cent real-terms cut in funding over the past seven years. Universities are facing increased costs, further funding cuts and more reliance on borrowing.
When asked by Scottish Labour last week, the First Minister refused to guarantee a two per cent real-terms increase in university teaching and research grants in next year’s Scottish budget.
Scotland has a proud tradition of maintaining world-leading universities. However, I fear that our academic institutions are being placed on a managed decline by the Scottish Government.
The week went from bad to worse for the Cabinet Secretary for Education as the Scottish Government announced plans to scrap the Named Person scheme.
As part of its Getting it Right for Every Child strategy, it proposed giving all children and young people from birth to 18 years access to a named person under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
The named person was intended to be single point of contact if a child or their parents wanted information or advice, or if they wanted to talk about any worries and seek support. They would also be a point of contact for other services if they had any concerns about a child’s well-being.
This was created with the best of intentions however, the whole process has been destroyed by the incompetence of successive SNP ministers. The Scottish Government lost control of the policy, lost the confidence and support of practitioners, parents and the public, then lost the challenge in the Supreme Court.
This comes after John Swinney had to shelve his Education Reform Bill last year and the Scottish Government ignored the Scottish Parliament’s vote to scrap primary one assessments.
This is another example of the mismanagement of Scotland’s education system by the SNP Government.
Nicola Sturgeon has stated plenty of times that education is her government’s number one priority. After a catalogue of failures, the mismanagement facilitated under her leadership would suggest that education is, in fact, not her priority.