Pupils’ poverty gap ‘stubborn’: Swinney

John Swinney has admitted closing the education attainment gap between rich and poor pupils is proving “stubborn and challenging”.

The education secretary also said support for careexperienced children “has not been good enough” and more must be done to help additional support needs (ASN) pupils.

Mr Swinney made the admissions as he announced the remit for an OECD review into Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).

The review, which will report next year, was commissioned by the Scottish Government after a critical Holyrood report highlighting a lack of leadership in education and a narrowing of subject choice.

Mr Swinney was later forced to widen the study to include earlier years schooling after opposition MSPs defeated the government at Holyrood.

During a keynote speech at the Wester Hailes Education Centre, Mr Swinney said the review should not be a “distraction” from efforts to close the attainment gap that sees children from rich backgrounds outperform their poorer counterparts.

He also claimed CfE was delivering for pupils and was still the right approach despite the criticism levelled at the controversial flagship Scottish Government initiative.

He said: “We know that the povertyrelated attainment gap is stubborn and challenging”

Scottish Government data released this week revealed 59.3% of pupils from the wealthiest areas went to university in 201819, compared with just 25.9% of their poorest peers.

The gap between rich and poor closed by just 2.5 percentage points when compared with the previous year.