Rennie: Attainment statistics show massive poverty gap

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie MSP today said new official statistics show the SNP Government has made “virtually no progress” on closing the attainment gap, despite Nicola Sturgeon claiming it was her defining mission.

It comes after the PISA international comparison of 81 countries’ education systems last week showed Scotland recording its worst ever results across all of reading, science and maths.

Willie Rennie commented:

“Seven years on from Nicola Sturgeon’s defining mission on education there is virtually no progress to show for it. Scottish education has slipped down the international rankings after recording its worst ever scores and the poverty-related attainment gap is massive.

“The poverty-related attainment gap may have now returned to 2018/19 levels but that leaves the Scottish Government miles away from closing it by 2026, either completely or substantially.

“The SNP seem to have no clue why the gap isn’t closing and why performance overall has slipped.  Their reform agenda has stalled so they now seem to have no clue about how to improve the performance of Scottish education.  The responsibility on the Education Secretary to fill this vacuum is huge.

“In addition to the issues around violence and behaviour, growing absence rates, the promised reduction in contact time for teachers, more teachers and in class resources, we need a full consideration of the plans for reform including the curriculum to get Scottish education back on track.