Closing attainment gap must be priority

Supporting the education of young people through the pandemic and beyond has been one of the Scottish Government’s greatest challenges of this crisis. As lockdown was imposed, schools had to adapt on the hoof to keep pupils learning.

The answer quickly settled upon was to provide young people at home with lessons and work tasks they could do online, while being overseen by a parent or guardian.

It was far from a perfect solution but provided enough continuity to ensure the majority of pupils didn’t suffer greater disruption to their education than was necessary.

But it was not a panacea. There were legitimate concerns that the education of a significant group of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds would be disproportionately impacted under the system.

Oversight and a widening attainment gap were primary concerns but so was a lack of computer equipment and broadband availability in homes to complete the tasks set.

The Scottish Government identified the issue early and sought to procure thousands of laptops for distribution to disadvantaged households.

A first tranche of equipment has since been procured at considerable cost to the public purse, but the laptops have yet to make it into the hands of a single learner.

Legitimate questions are being asked as to why this might be. Given the circumstances with Covid, it seems odd to wait for the new school term to get on with the job.