Meeting of the Parliament 29 October 2015
Tackling the attainment gap in our education system has to be our number 1 priority, so I am pleased that there is recognition across the political divide that we have to do a lot more to end the education inequality that continues to undermine the life chances of thousands of children and young people right across Scotland.
It can never be right that a child’s opportunities in life are shaped more by his or her family background than they are by their talent, their hard work or their efforts. Education should always be a route out of poverty and it should enable every single child to reach their full potential, but the gap between the rich and poor in Scotland often means that instead of potential being unlocked, inequality is reinforced and reproduced. That is why, although Scottish Labour will always hold the Scottish Government to account on its failings, we want to work together to get this right and to ensure that we really do make a difference for all Scotland’s children.
Although Scottish Labour welcomes and supports the general principles of the bill, we feel that, as it stands, it is a missed opportunity and needs a lot of strengthening. The cabinet secretary will be pleased to hear that for once I will not devote my speech to going on about the fantastic achievements in Fife in closing the attainment gap and increasing literacy levels. I know that she is aware of that success and I hope that the Scottish Government will learn from it.
Iain Gray has outlined a number of improvements that Scottish Labour will seek to make to the bill during its progress. One of the most important issues that we believe needs to be addressed is the school week. We will lodge amendments on that at stage 2. Scottish Labour believes that every parent in Scotland should have a guarantee that their primary school child will have a minimum of 25 hours teaching a week. That proposal has the support of the Educational Institute of Scotland and many thousands of parents.
Research by Reform Scotland has revealed that the teaching time that primary school children in Scotland receive can vary by up to 149 hours per year, depending on where they live. In the past few years, parents in Dunfermline and across Fife and in Renfrewshire, Falkirk, the Highlands and West Dunbartonshire have all been told by their local councils that cuts to the school week could be on the horizon.
The sheer scale of the budget challenges that local authorities are dealing with, and the fact that education takes up such a large proportion of council budgets, mean that local authorities are increasingly having to make difficult decisions. For example, last winter parents in Fife were told that one of the options on the table was to reduce the primary school week by 10 per cent. Parents were obviously outraged by that proposal. My inbox was full to the brim with many hundreds of emails from parents who were angry, worried and concerned. They were angry about the potential effect on their children’s learning; worried about the impact, given the challenges that every mum and dad already faces in balancing school, work, home and childcare; and concerned that their kids would suffer not only now but in the future, as richer families would be able to make up the difference by paying tutors to plug the gap, while the poorest children and those with additional support needs would be left to fall further behind.
One parent wrote to me to say:
“By taking away 10% of my child’s primary school education, you will potentially affect him for the rest of his life. He will never regain that lost teaching time and those lost learning experiences.”
Another wrote:
“I have friends in different areas of Scotland who are not facing their children losing 75 ... hours of teaching a year. This works out at 525 lost hours in their 7 years at Primary School. Why should my children lose out?”
In Fife, parents won their fight and Fife Council agreed not to cut school hours for now, but it has warned parents that radical changes will need to be made to address the £75 million budget gap. Given that education accounts for 45 per cent of that overall budget, it will face its share of cuts. Fife is not alone in having to think the unthinkable on school hours.