Meeting of the Parliament 02 February 2016
Closing the educational attainment gap is a key priority for the Scottish Government. I whole-heartedly support it in that aim, but we must look at the full picture.
If we believe that poverty is a factor in educational attainment, then we must look at poverty-related educational issues. I believe that many children from our poorest areas are experiencing both financial poverty and poverty of speech and language. If they turn up at school in primary 1 unable to communicate in a way that will help them to engage, then they will struggle for the rest of their school life.
I have lodged my amendments because I am convinced that 50 per cent or more of children who are living in poverty do not have to have delayed speech, language and communication development. SLC delay leads to poor literacy and numeracy skills, leading, inevitably, to inequality of outcome.
There are a couple of fundamental points to make. The statistics that link socioeconomic disadvantage—poverty—with speech, language and communication delay are compelling. The report commissioned by the Scottish Government in 2015, “Tackling Inequalities in the Early Years: Key messages from 10 years of the Growing Up in Scotland study”, highlights that 54 per cent of children from low-income homes present with below-average vocabulary ability at the age of five. Living in poverty also means that children are around eight times more likely to turn up at school with an SLC delay than the average child—of whom only 6 per cent have the disorder. The growing up in Scotland study also highlights that SLC delay is a staggering 24 per cent higher among poor children than children from richer income groups.
With these amendments I am saying that when we talk about poverty we have to look at the larger picture. If we say that poverty is an issue, then we also have to look at how to address the issue.
SLC delay is the second highest type of difficulty recorded among children from low-income families. It is just one point lower than the 55 per cent who are not breastfed, which, unlike SLC delay, is an issue that rightly attracts a lot of strategic attention.
I believe that there has been some confusion about what my amendments are about. They are not about making a special case for a special group of children with complex additional support needs. They are about poverty. These amendments address the biggest and most common barrier to learning that is faced by a majority of children that live in poverty. This bill explicitly sets out to help those children.
The statistics that link SLC delay to inequality of outcome are equally attention grabbing. The recent report by Save the Children, “Ready to Read: Closing the gap in early language skills so that every child in Scotland can read well”, highlights the importance of early language skills in setting the foundation of children’s later literacy and education. Studies showing that the majority of children and young people who are in crisis or who are excluded or in trouble have SLC needs are, perhaps, even more startling. I have often spoken about times when I have gone to young offenders’ institutes and met the young people there; they have often said that, if they had had such provision, they might not be where they are. Those are the type of people who have this type of disorder.
The amendments that I have lodged aim to establish an awareness of the strong associations between socioeconomic disadvantage and speech, language and communication delay, and subsequent low attainment and inequality of outcome. They also aim to achieve focused, cross-agency and cross-discipline partnership action on speech, language and communication.
Ultimately, my amendments aim to reduce inequality of outcome for at least half of Scotland’s poorest children: young people who arrive at primary school with delayed speech, language and communication development and go on to carry that learning disadvantage through their school lives into adult life, when they are statistically more likely to become poor parents of future generations. I believe that that is the key issue in this debate. I believe that this group of amendments can help us to achieve the goal that we all want to achieve: to ensure that all our children get that opportunity and that we can close the attainment gap.
I move amendment 17.