F for failures! SNP’s record on education is abysmal says Labour
NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of presiding over a ‘litany of failure’ in the classroom.
The First Minister said improving education would be her ‘defining mission’ and she urged voters to judge her on her record.
But Scottish Labour last night said she had ‘failed abysmally’, saying that spending per pupil has fallen and that teacher numbers are still below 2007 levels.
The party said class size targets have been missed, Scotland is sliding down international rankings and that the attainment gap persists, while funding for university students has fallen in real terms.
Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said: ‘The SNP’s 13-year stewardship of education has been a litany of failure.
‘Promises made by the SNP in 2007 have not been delivered and issues such as the attainment gap have been neglected.
‘[Education Secretary] John Swinney has presided over crisis after crisis, including the shameful [exam] results debacle of last summer. Nicola Sturgeon once said,
“Judge me on education”. By all measures she and her Government have failed abysmally – this year, as the election approaches, they face a reckoning for that failure.’
According to statistical analysis, spending on children in primary school was on average £288 less, in real terms, in 2018-19 than in 201011, and £129 less in high schools.
There are 1,700 fewer teachers than when the SNP came to power in 2007, Scottish Labour said.
This has contributed to a failure to cut classroom sizes to fewer than 18 pupils, as promised by the SNP before 2007.
Scots pupils have fallen down international rankings, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), in maths, reading and science, and now come below English counterparts.
Meanwhile, Scots from poorer backgrounds are less likely to secure a place in university.
But Mr Swinney said: ‘The number of teachers is at its highest since 2008. Class sizes are falling. The attainment gap is closing.
‘Pisa results stabilised or improved in the latest study. Record numbers of students from the most deprived communities are now winning a place at university – and we have the highest education spending per head in the UK.’