Meeting of the Parliament 10 February 2016
Education is my passion. I was raised by teachers, and I learned from them how education can enrich lives and overcome any predetermined destiny. Education offers a first chance for individuals to blossom into the people they are capable of becoming and a second chance to start again and choose a new life.
Our schools and nurseries are where we place our children’s future into the trust of the Government’s hands. Our colleges and universities are where we seed the future prosperity of our nation.
Education is both an anti-poverty policy and our most important economic policy. Education is everything. Our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities are the stairway out of disadvantage, and they are the map that shows us where to locate our potential. Just ask any of the big thinkers on the left: Joseph Stiglitz tells us that, if we do not invest in education,
“we are transmitting advantages and disadvantages across generations”,
while Thomas Piketty tells us:
“the best way to increase wages and reduce wage inequalities in the long run is to invest in education and skill.”
The sad truth is that investing in education has not been the priority of this Scottish National Party Government. When this Parliament was established in 1999, we spent £204 more per person on education than the United Kingdom average. Today that difference has fallen to just £18. We still have higher public spending than the UK; we just do not spend it on education. Education must be our national priority: the very first call for resources and the very last place that we choose to cut.
Yet the SNP cuts and cuts and cuts. Teacher numbers are at a 10-year low after local council funding has been cut and cut. The amount spent on each primary pupil has been cut by over £560. Primary pupils—cut. Secondary school spend per pupil has been cut by £285. Even nurseries, which are supposedly the signature policy of this First Minister, have faced cuts of £290 per person.
Audit Scotland found that every local authority has cut spending, and almost every council has had to cut teacher numbers. This is a Government that came to power promising to cut primary 1 to 3 class sizes to 18 or less, yet today just one in eight primary 1 to 3 pupils is in a class under 18 in size, and one in four of our five to seven-year-olds is being taught in a class of more than 25.
The SNP keeps on cutting: more cuts to childcare, £130 million less for education in the current budget, and hundreds of millions of pounds more of cuts to the local authorities that run our local schools.
Enough. Today we put a simple proposition before Parliament: no more cuts to education. We ask MSPs of all parties to vote to support one principle, in one sentence:
“that education spending should be protected in real terms over the next five years.”