Pupils let down by lack of essentials

SIR, – Finally there seems to be some recognition that our young people have been very poorly served during the pandemic.

While they have borne school closures with great fortitude, the lack of effective alternative arrangements in the state sector has been a failure of epic proportions and many pupils have had zero online face-to-face time with teachers since lockdown.

The model of self-timetabled, set work for three months is resulting in isolation, demotivation and a lack of engagement.

In a letter to parents, Laurence Findlay, the head of Aberdeenshire’s education department, stated that the video conferencing components of Microsoft Teams and Google Meet have, up to now, not been available to the majority of local authorities in Scotland. Why not?

This should have been dealt with by Education Scotland in the leadup to lockdown, not three months later. I do not blame the teachers here but government leadership, both local and national, that has failed to provide the necessary tools and set ambitious but realistic expectations of what schools should be delivering.

Parents who pay for their children’s education have not had to accept such a farcical situation, with many private schools running fully timetabled lessons online.

Indeed, such a system already exists in the Western Isles local authority, but there has been no attempt to make that available across Scotland. So much for the SNP’s closure of the attainment gap; Mr Swinney has presided over a huge increase in this which could have been avoided with a modicum of competence.

Stuart Alexander, High Street, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire