FM admits ‘education emergency’

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitted Scotland was facing an “education emergency” as she was accused of creating more confusion over how exactly schools will reopen on August 11.

Ms Sturgeon made the admission as she came under attack from opposition politicians as they criticised plans for restarting schools later this summer.

Anger over the way the Scottish Government had handled the return of children’s education during the coronavirus pandemic dominated First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood.

Ms Sturgeon was told parents were being put in “an impossible position” by the Scottish Government because they were being asked to go back to work next week without the support to look after their children.

The first minister also faced criticism for the conflicting messages coming from government about the form that children’s education takes when schools reopen towards for the next academic year.

She and Education Secretary John Swinney have come up with a controversial “blended learning” model that will combine home-schooling with more conventional classroom teaching. The model has been devised to reduce numbers at school so the twometre physical distancing rule can be observed.

But “blended learning” has been criticised by parents, who claim teaching children at home will be impossible to juggle for those who are working.

At First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon raised the possibility of a more conventional education returning in August when she gave her support to a statement by a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 Advisory Group.

She agreed with Professor Devi Sridhar, of Edinburgh University, who had tweeted that schools should reopen “as normally as possible” on August 11 assuming coronavirus numbers were low enough.

But the first minister’s agreement with her adviser appeared at odds with Mr Swinney.

A few hours earlier the deputy first minister and education secretary told the National Parent Forum of Scotland during a Zoom call that the two-metre rule would probably be in place when schools return on that date.

Conservative education spokesman Jamie Greene said: “The confusing and contradictory messages from the first minister and her deputy are deeply counterproductive.”