TYCOON’S CALL FOR A CLASS REVOLUTION
SIR Tom Hunter has called for a ‘permanent revolution in education’ to give teachers more power and ‘put the needs of our children first’.
The tycoon said Scotland’s schools are no longer world-class but ‘political grandstanding gets us nowhere’, adding: ‘Politics, unions and rhetoric aside we are in this together – we fix it together or we confine our children to third best.’
Sir Tom, Scotland’s first homegrown billionaire, said our ‘top priority’ is putting children’s needs first and taking the politics out of education to ‘do what is proven to work’.
He added: ‘Great teachers can lift any child up the ladder of education. Great teachers, that is, who are left to teach, prepare teaching plans, have time to think and engage pupils in pragmatic, dynamic learning.’
Sir Tom said there was a need to ‘free our schools up, with greater budgetary independence for headteachers to spend money on what they consider best for pupils’.
The entrepreneur and philanthropist said he knew a headteacher who had only been allowed by the education authority to interview two of the 23 teachers his school received, a situation he described as ‘crazy’.
Sir Tom also said he believed Nicola Sturgeon’s willingness to ‘find solutions’ but said: ‘This is not the right time for another independence debate… I’m not saying never, I’m saying not now.’