Meeting of the Parliament 18 May 2022
By introducing criticism of the Government in my amendment, I have perhaps been less generous than colleagues. However, I suspect that the motion would be hard for it to support.
The debate perfectly sums up the challenges in Scottish education under the SNP. It is yet another example of where the rhetoric does not match the reality. After its action on SAC funding, the idea that the Government can continue to claim that education is its number 1 priority is a joke.
Since I was elected to this chamber, I have consistently made the case for more funding for rural schools and for recognition of the challenges that rural poverty brings to education. In one sense, I am pleased that we have now had an admission from the Government that that has been overlooked for years. However, at no point did I imagine that such support would be paid for by taking money and resources from others who are experiencing poverty.
It is not just the seemingly casual redistribution of the funds that troubles me; it is the timing off the back of the Covid pandemic and the speed with which the authorities that are losing out will have to make eye-watering cutbacks. Perhaps all that would have been more excusable if our schools had not become so reliant on attainment funding to plug the gap and pay for key staff and specialists.
Under the SNP, our education system has been stretched to breaking point and left woefully understaffed and under-resourced, as the pandemic exposed. In the pandemic’s aftermath, we are left with an SNP Government and cabinet secretary who seem detached from the realities that our schools and young people are facing. The Government’s priorities are all wrong and the level of investment is insufficient to deliver on past promises.
Looking at the issue more widely, there is little point in claiming to put additional financial support into the system to increase attainment when you do not get the teaching and learning bit right. That is where teachers can make a difference and help close the gap. No one is saying that welfare and wellbeing are not important, but we must stop asking teachers to do everything, and we must start resourcing them to do the job that they are there to do. We must support teachers and let them get on with helping young people.
That means making sure that we can recruit and retain the right teachers, specialists and support staff across the country. It means getting class sizes down to a level at which behaviour can be managed and individual pupils can get the support that they need. It means offering pay and conditions that reflect the work that teachers do. It means trusting teachers to decide more about what a school needs.
The PEF and attainment challenge funding serve as nothing more than a mirage when we do not properly resource our schools in the first place. There are many questions over additionality when it comes to this money, and I could go on about them all afternoon, but they are for another day.
That is because, for the areas of the country that are seeing their funding cut back, we are not talking about additionality. We are talking about fewer resources going to our most vulnerable young people. We are talking about fewer teachers and fewer professionals being there to support young people off the back of the pandemic. Yes, we are seeing more resources going to other parts of the country, and that is to be welcomed, but those resources do nothing for the young people and teachers who are left to pick up the pieces.
How a cabinet secretary who claims to be here to champion education can say that that is enough, and not be able to find more resources within her segment of the budget, instead of pushing her colleagues in Government to find more money for what is one of the most important areas of public life and our most sacred duty in this Parliament, beggars belief. I do not know how the cabinet secretary can justify robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is a matter for her conscience, at the end of the day.
I move amendment S6M-04445.1, to insert at end:
“, and believes that, if the Scottish Government and the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had kept their promise to make education their number one priority, resourced the education system properly, and had not cut thousands of teaching and support roles prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the challenges that are being seen could have been significantly reduced.”
16:23Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.