Meeting of the Parliament 19 January 2022
We are still living in a global pandemic, which continues to have a significant impact on education. For that reason, caution should remain and contingencies are needed in education as in other aspects of life.
I take this opportunity to thank our teachers and support staff for their on-going efforts to put our learners first. Indeed, we should all be working to put the interests of learners first, in the face of on-going uncertainty. For that reason, I strongly disagree with the highly irresponsible motion and will set out the Government’s plans to support pupils and staff at this time.
The Government has increased our investment in the Scottish attainment challenge from £750 million over the previous parliamentary session to a record £1 billion over this parliamentary session. The investment is supporting education recovery, tackling the attainment gap and recognising the impact of the pandemic.
We have committed to bringing into the system—on top of the 1,400 teachers who have been recruited during the pandemic—a further 3,500 teachers and 500 support staff by the end of this session. The school census data that was published in December shows that we already have 2,000 more teachers in the system than we had before the pandemic. There are now more teachers than there have been at any time since 2008, and the pupil teacher ratio is at its lowest since 2009.