MSPs are ‘too busy’ to act over schools literacy crisis

THE head of Holyrood’s SNP-dominated education committee has said it may be too busy to investigate the schools literacy crisis.

Stewart Maxwell, Nationalist convener of the committee, told the Mail it had a ‘jammed’ schedule and admitted he had not even read a key report on the issue.

The Scottish Government’s Scottish Survey of Literacy last week showed a slide in reading and writing ability for pupils in primary and secondary schools.

This came a week after another official report had claimed literacy was ‘improving’.

Mr Maxwell said he had ‘no idea’ why the earlier report had not sounded the alarm over the deterioration in pupils’ key skills.

Last night there was criticism of the Nationalists’ complacency over the decline in literacy – which critics say has been fuelled

‘Performance is moving backwards’

by the party’s obsession with seeking independence.

Scottish Tory education spokesman Elizabeth Smith has submitted a parliamentary question, challenging the Scottish Government over the glaring ‘discrepancy’ between the official reports on the subject.

Urging the committee to investigate the slump in literacy standards, she said: ‘Last week’s statistics show that, in some areas of literacy, performance is moving backwards not forwards.

‘That is unacceptable. What makes things even more worrying is that recent Government reports on literacy imply things are getting better when the statistics prove the opposite.’

Mr Maxwell said he had not read the report by the SNP’s Standing Literacy Commission, which pointed to a ‘generally improving picture for literacy levels’.

Asked if the committee would examine the slide in literacy, Mr Maxwell said: ‘We would be interested in looking at literacy – but it’s for the committee to decide.’

Mr Maxwell did not rule out an examination of the decline in literacy skills, and admitted the figures were ‘not good enough’.