Stop using Scotland’s excellent education system as a political football

Sir, – I heard an interview on the radio with retiring EIS chief Larry Flanagan which I found to be very honest, as most of his previous interviews have been.

The biggest failure regarding Scottish education has been the attempt to turn it into a political football.

The constant girn from particularly the Tories completely rejects that narrative and is one of the constant problems that education faces in the binary crosshairs which means that anything positive about what the Scottish Government does is endorsing independence and anything critical goes in the opposite direction.

As a result of the kicking politicians are continually giving education here in Scotland, it has developed a narrative that it is failing. This is completely untrue.

Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone asked Tory Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to share best practice with the Scottish Government so the scandal of education here could be sorted out.

That is appalling because Scottish education is way ahead of the English system.

Politicians keep referring to the PISA results to try to portray our system in poor light but there is little difference between the jurisdictions in terms of attainment.

It is seldom reported that Scotland is third in the PISA results for global competency.

The Curriculum for Excellence has been very successful in terms of the citizenship agenda and how the children view themselves.

You attack education, you attack teachers who are working flat-out and often dealing with children from very poverty-stricken backgrounds.

Schools are the heart of the community where teachers are doing a fantastic job here in Scotland so we should thank them and build on that.

Dunoon Grammar, which is a state school, has been shortlisted for the final 10 for Education World’s best schools for community collaboration. The winner will be announced later this year. Another two are in England with the rest all overseas.

Prestwick Academy recently won the First Minister’s reading challenge for 2022. This was launched in 2016 and delivered by the Scottish Book Trust. So well done to both schools

Education here stretches from nursery through to university life-long learning.

To glibly say they are

all failing is the mantra of the ideologue and we have plenty of them here and it is not true. Those who say it seem to resent the idea of a successful Scotland in all walks of life.

The Office for National Statistics found that Scotland was the most highly educated country in Europe and among the most well-educated countries in the world in terms of tertiary education with 40% of Scots aged 16 to 64 educated to NVQ level.

We all have our experiences of Scottish education, both positive and painful, and there are those who feel motivated to emphasise its shortcomings but they are a mere hillside compared to the Himalayan heights of our educational achievement.

Furthermore Scottish students do not pay fees to attend university so only borrow for living expenses, so pay 1.5%.

Brexit is also set to suck billions of euros from this sector as Scots universities face a loss of EU funding.

In the last six years they have received threequarters of a billion euros in the last round of the world’s biggest science research fund Horizon.

Due to Brexit, the universities are now barred from applying with the University of the Highlands and Islands particularly badly hit as it received more than £250m from the EU in the last 25 years because of its peripherality, far from markets which served rural communities.

Edinburgh University has consistently been in the top 20 QS ranking.

Scotland was seen as the most successful nation per head delivery through this excellent science pillar. Now for the bad news. Inflation is at 9% and rising but the block grant from Westminster projected for the next two years is only increasing by 2% so faces real-terms cuts.

Same for Wales a cut in real terms. Given the billions wasted by Westminster I find that disgusting and shocking but that won’t prevent the same old fake news from theses sharks on our education.

Larry Flanagan.