Sad lesson for child who needs a teacher

THERE is, to be frank, something Dickensian about it all. Except the hero is not a grubbyfaced Oliver Twist holding his bowl out for more, but little Poppy Dennis, just 11 years old and desperate to learn.

‘Dear Mr Swinney,’ the pupil at Arisaig Primary School wrote in her best handwriting.

‘Please can you help me? My problem is my class (P4-7) does not have any teacher. My classmates and I are not learning anything!’

How on earth did it come to this? That a young child, so frustrated with her lack of education, takes it upon herself to write a letter to the Education Secretary?

But if that appals you, then consider, too, John Swinney’s mealy-mouthed response.

Although he is understood to have responded to Poppy personally, his public statement was the sort of ham-fisted bumbling rhetoric we have, I’m afraid, come to expect from the Scottish Government.

After thanking Poppy for her letter he declared: ‘We have taken decisive action to help recruit and retain teachers through our Teaching Makes People campaign.

‘This year alone we invested £88million so every school can access the right number of teachers.’

I’m not sure, but I think the correct response to this Pravda-esque diatribe is a slow handclap.

For Artful Dodger Swinney is not, generally, in the business of admitting he has got it wrong. Instead, he has very much set up his stall in the department of righteous obfuscation, a place frequented by a number of his fellow cabinet ministers on an alarmingly regular basis.

How many more children, I wonder, are in a similar position to Poppy Dennis? Given that figures revealed a month ago that almost 700 teaching posts across the country are unfilled, I’m guessing quite a few.

The root of this problem lies within teaching itself.

Just yesterday it emerged that hundreds of places on teacher training courses have been left unfilled, an issue that has been growing for several years.

Teaching has fallen out of favour as an attractive career option and not without reason.

Excessive workloads, low pay, not to mention the constant sniping by government about education means that, these days, teaching is about as alluring a job prospect as a six-month traineeship with Fagin himself.

Swinney says the Government is taking ‘decisive action’ and has flung £88million at the problem.

But you have to ask – why was it ever allowed to get to such a crisis level in the first place?

So far, it seems the only thing young Poppy Dennis has learnt is how easily her Government can let her down.