Early school leavers hit by reduced subject choice, claim Conservatives
A reduction in the number of subjects being taken by S4 pupils will hit early school leavers the hardest, the Scottish Conservatives have said.
The party’ s education spokeswoman Liz Smith said evidence showed the range of four th- year subject choices was now restricted to six –down from the traditional eight–in the majority of schools.
She said 57 percent of schools now offer the reduced number, compared with 28 per cent in 2013.
At Holy rood, Ms Smith said the reduction had led to almost 144,000 fewer annual course passes.
“This impacts everyone, but particularly those who want to leave school at the end of S4 or S5 who will now do so with fewer qualifications than would otherwise be the case,” she said.
Education secretary John Swinney said the reduction in S4 subjects was part of the redesign of the curriculum and represented a move away from the previous system “where the focus was on gaining as many standard grades or O- levels as possible”.
Far from this being an unintended consequence, that was an entirely deliberate outcome of redesigning the senior phase,” he said. “The period from S4 to S6 ... is designed as a three- year phase of learning where the focus is on a learner’s total achievements by the end of that period.”