Meeting of the Parliament 05 February 2025
I accept it, but does the cabinet secretary accept that the OECD also tells us that the issues were there before Covid? Those underlying issues were there before 2020, when the Government was in power.
The cold, hard truth is that there is nowhere for the Government to hide from the fact that it is failing young people too often. Standards have fallen, incidents involving the use of weapons in schools have risen by 50 per cent, and staff and teachers reported 44,600 incidents of violence and abuse in 2023 alone. Too often, teachers are not teaching—they are simply doing crowd control in the classroom.
The Government desperately needs to get a grip on what is happening in our schools, and the first step is to restore our education to the great state that it used to be in. Education is a vital tool in lifting children out of poverty but, for far too long, the figures have painted a damning picture of the Government’s efforts. As Pam Duncan-Glancy pointed out, more than a quarter of children live in poverty. More than 15,000 children are homeless, and we have heard today that the use of temporary accommodation has risen to a 20-year high. Those statistics should not make us feel proud but should concern us and call us to action.
The Government is very good with words but not so good at delivering real change. We need targeted support for the most vulnerable to ensure that we achieve maximum impact. Free school meals and support with school trips and school uniform could make a real difference to children’s lives, not to mention giving peace of mind to hard-working parents who are struggling to make ends meet.
Education should not be a burden on families. It should be positive, and a safe place for young people to learn and develop the skills to thrive in modern Scotland. I agree with Mr Rennie that we need to do more about vocational training, particularly for children in secondary 3 and 4 who will clearly not achieve academically. We need to find roles for them and to get them into that training. More needs to be done. We need action, because Scottish children deserve better.
16:04