CONSERVATIVE -

The SNP are content with an underperforming education system whereas The Scottish Conservatives want to restore excellence in Scottish schools so that every child has the chance to succeed.

Long before this crisis, schools in Scotland were consistently going backwards under the SNP and they have exploited the health crisis to dodge scrutiny of their failing record. International PISA study results show that Scottish education has gone backwards. Scotland’s maths score has dropped in every PISA survey and is now at a record low, with science also now at a record low.

We will restore our schools after 14 years of SNP decline with 3,000 new teachers and a national plan to help young people catch up from missed schooling. There are still over 1,600 fewer teachers than when the SNP came to power, and class sizes are still bigger than the SNP promised they would be in 2007.

Our manifesto will commit us to free university tuition We consider that it isn’t right to reintroduce fees when students have suffered so much during this pandemic at the hands of the SNP.

The SNP have repeatedly ignored our calls for more remote learning funding and yet, only when an election campaign gets underway, do they finally announce action. Leading education expert Professor Lindsay Paterson has said he was‘astonished’at the ‘incompetence’of the SNP in not preparing better for the second lockdown.

Closing the attainment gap is not a priority for this SNP Government only The Scottish Conservatives are committed to that.