Sturgeon attacked as schools ‘lose out on £1.2bn’
SCHOOL spending has been slashed by more than £1.2billion in seven years – with the amount spent per secondary pupil falling by around £1,000, it was claimed yesterday.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale tackled Nicola Sturgeon on the issue, telling the First Minister: ‘The real problem in our education system is our schools are skint.’
Miss Sturgeon insisted councils plan to spend £144million more this year on education compared to last year.
But Miss Dugdale challenged her on the figures as they clashed at First Minister’s Questions.
She said: ‘Her own government’s figures show this year’s spending on education is going down again in real terms. Under the SNP, spending on pupils is going down again in real terms.
‘I’ll tell her just how real it is. The SNP has cut spending by hundreds of pounds for every
‘SNP has cut spending’
single pupil and it has cut spending on each secondary pupil by over £1,000. It is a 7 per cent cut by this government since 2010.’
The numbers, which the Labour leader said came from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Spice), show there has been £1.23billion ‘taken out of schools since 2010’.
According to Labour, spending per pupil in secondary schools has fallen from £8,033 in 2010-11 to £6,892 in 2016-17.
Miss Dugdale claimed that under the SNP ‘teacher numbers are down, support staff numbers are down, class sizes are going up’.
But Miss Sturgeon hit back, saying: ‘This Government is taking the tough action to reform education, to get more powers into the hands of head teachers and teachers, and get more resources into the hands of head teachers and teachers.’
The First Minister then turned on the decisions made in North Lanarkshire, where Labour runs the council with the Tories.
She said: ‘Firstly, it decided not to use the powers it had been given to increase the council tax, it decided to freeze the council tax.
‘Secondly, it decided to cut the number of classroom assistants, to sack the very support staff Kezia Dugdale is talking about.’