Try to close attainment gap in 4yrs? SNP admits it’s given up

A FLAGSHIP SNP education policy lay in ruins last night after ministers abandoned a timetable to close the attainment gap.

Nicola Sturgeon claimed that narrowing the gap between the school performance of the richest and poorest pupils would be the ‘defining mission’ of her government and promised to eliminate it by 2026.

But her Education Secretary, ShirleyAnne Somerville, yesterday ditched the timetable and said she would not set an ‘arbitrary date’ for action.

Miss Sturgeon pledged to eliminate the attainment gap in her 2016 programme for government, which said it should be ‘a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success’.

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Willie Rennie said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon said that education would be her overriding priority. Even before the pandemic Scotland had tumbled down the

‘There is no clearer admission of failure’

international rankings and now the attainment gap is wider than ever.

‘No SNP minister has ever been able to say that closing the attainment was their defining mission with a straight face. Their education agenda is in tatters.

‘Scottish education needs a fresh start with teachers at the helm and SNP ministers banished to the naughty corner.’

Miss Somerville refused to give an ‘arbitrary date’ for closing the attainment gap at a meeting of Holyrood’s education committee yesterday.

When asked by convener Stephen Kerr if it is still the Scottish Government’s aim, she said: ‘Yes.’

But she would not give a date for closing the gap.

Miss Somerville said: ‘I’m not going to set an arbitrary date on when the attainment gap will be closed, particularly so close to the experiences that we are still having with the pandemic.’

The SNP’s 2016 programme for government stated: ‘It is the defining mission of this Government to close the povertyrelated attainment gap.

‘We intend to make significant progress within the lifetime of this parliament and substantially eliminate the gap over the course of the next decade.

‘That is a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success.’

But the attainment gap widened last year.

At Higher level, attainment at A-C level was 7.9 per cent higher in schools within the least deprived areas, up from 6.5 per cent last year.

But attainment at grade A was 22.1 per cent higher in least deprived areas compared to the most deprived, which was the widest gap in five years and higher than the 20.2 per cent seen last year.

The gap in attainment at A-C level also widened at National 5s, from 7.9 per cent last year to 9 per cent, and at Advanced Higher, from 3 per cent last year to 5.5 per cent this year.

Scottish Conservative education spokesman Oliver Mundell said last night: ‘There could be no clearer admission of failure from the SNP Government than them giving up on this totemic pledge.

‘This is the ultimate betrayal of youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds by Nicola

Sturgeon. And the idea that after this, they can continue to claim that education is their number one priority is a joke.’

Scottish Labour education spokesman Michael Marra said: ‘The SNP is not just abandoning its timetable – it is abandoning generations of young Scots from deprived backgrounds. This failure is emblematic of the SNP’s wasted 15 years in office – Scotland deserves better.’