£400 million spending cuts are having a profound impact on Scottish education

The recent figures released by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre clearly show what every teacher in Scotland is all too aware of.

In the ten years of S NP control, actual spending on education has fallen by £400 million annually.

Factor in inflation and the drop in spending for schools has been seismic.

Teachers now contend with larger class sizes, rising lev- els of indiscipline and a serious lack of resources which constrains and limits their teaching.

On a day to day basis, what is the impact? In secondary schools pupils have access to far fewer textbooks and teachers have little or no access to photocopying.

Information is relayed on screen in the classroom and pupils need internet access at home to revise or complete homework. Is it any wonder that there is such a large gap in attainment between the more and the less advantaged?

Science lessons are far less practical because the chemicals and equipment are too expensive for experiments.

Home economics has become theoretical only for the same reason, despite the urgent need in Scotland to improve cooking skills and nutrition. Large class sizes impact on speaking practice in foreign language classes, discussion groups in the social sciences, practical approaches in music lessons.

Meanwhile teachers labour under a growing marking burden. Marking 25 essays is time consuming enough; 30 takes even longer. Probably even more damaging to teacher morale is the steady rise in pupil misbehaviour, far harder to deal with in larger classes.

In short, the S NP have created the perfect storm for teachers, resulting in the current shortage of recruits.

Scotland’s steady fall down the international rankings comes as no surprise to teachers.

South of the Border, education spending has been maintained in real terms and results have risen, overtaking Scotland’s on every measure.

The lack of resources in our education system is not the result of Westminster austerity; it is a conscious decision by the SNP to limit spending.

Couple this with the 150 000 lost further education places and the strict limits on uni - vers it yen trance for Scottish pupils, and the overall loss of opportunity for Scotland’ s young people is nothing short of tragic.