Scots pupils betrayed by 15 years of SNP failure

IT IS the defining mission of this Government to close the poverty-related attainment gap.’ The SNP’s Programme for Government in 2016 could not have been clearer.

But lest there be any doubt, it hammered home the pledge: ‘We intend to make significant progress within the lifetime of this parliament and substantially eliminate the gap over the course of the next decade. That is a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success.’

How the First Minister must rue those words as Scottish Qualifications Authority analysis of this year’s exam diet highlights that the gap between the results achieved by pupils from the most and least deprived parts of the country has widened dramatically.

In fact, it’s not so much a gap as a yawning chasm; a chasm that, by her own yardstick of choice, lays bare the abject failure of Nicola Sturgeon’s government. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised. The SNP’s 15-year tenure has been pockmarked by failings aplenty.

Under Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP, educational standards fell to the point where her government opted to withdraw from international comparison tables rather than face the humiliating reality of the decline over which it has presided. The statistics we do have show standards in maths and science lower than a decade ago, and trailing the rest of the UK. At university level, Scottish students are at a disadvantage, compared with those from elsewhere, in applying to their national institutions.

During the SNP’s first decade in power, teacher numbers fell by 4,000. Despite belated attempts to reverse the trend, 15 per cent of places on teacher training courses are still unfilled. Worse still, Scotland is only training half the physics teachers the country needs and only three-quarters of the maths teachers required.

Last year, the OECD concluded that the SNP’s education policy was cumbersome and lacking long-term vision or strategy. It was branded a ‘damning report’ by the Scottish Greens, who are now in government with the SNP and so share some guilt by association for its failings.

But for a government that likes to boast – with precious little supporting evidence – of its ‘progressive’ nature, the widening attainment gap is the most grievous sin among the SNP’s litany of education failures.

In Nat 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers the trend is clear and consistent: a widening of the differential between the grades obtained by kids from the most and least privileged backgrounds. At almost every level, the most disadvantaged kids are not just doing worse than their peers, but their position is getting worse, thanks to the SNP’s policies.

It’s unforgivable that, year after year, countless bright, talented pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are not being allowed to reach their full potential.

Pupils have done extraordinarily well to overcome the huge challenges of the past couple of years of Covid disruption. Those who obtained the grades they hoped for deserve enormous praise, particularly when they received only minimal support from the SNP Government.

EQUALLY, teachers and other education professionals, who have had their budgets slashed by the SNP Government, are due our appreciation for their dedication.

During the pandemic, the Scottish Conservatives advocated a national tutoring programme to support pupils who had been disadvantaged by the Government’s lockdowns perhaps more than any other group.

But the SNP was far too slow to offer catch-up and support programmes for pupils. It did little to help them prepare for a return to the exam diet. It’s very likely the lack of action has contributed to this unacceptable rise in the attainment gap.

For centuries, Scottish education was the envy of the world. But 15 years of SNP rule have ensured that is a distant memory. It has trashed that proud legacy and betrayed the very youngsters that need and deserve the benefits of a good education most: the disadvantaged.

In doing so, the First Minister – by her own yardstick – has defined herself as a failure.