Hansard

I welcome this debate because it comes at a time when there is a consensus in education that enough is enough. In the past week, a range of statistics have laid bare this Government’s 16 years of inaction and broken promises in education and the fact that, ultimately, it has let children down, left teachers exhausted and allowed too many pupils to fall through the cracks. The PISA data showed that Scotland’s once world-leading education system has declined in the international rankings and that the attainment gap has grown. Summary data on Scottish schools revealed concerns around teacher numbers and pupil attendance and behaviour. The ACEL data showed that pupils with additional support needs continue to be more likely to miss important milestones at every stage of their school career.

The situation should not have had to get that bad and it should not have taken so long for the Government to acknowledge the scale of the problem. Teachers, parents, pupils and queues of experts have been sounding alarm bells for years but, instead of listening, the Government has long-grassed concerns by setting up groups and reviews, and it has removed us from international studies that could have given us vital signs of the path that we were on. Ultimately, it has camouflaged the decline.

I was pleased to detect a bit of a change in the cabinet secretary during the statement that she gave yesterday. She finally appeared to grasp the gravity of the situation, and I look forward to hearing more detail of the proposals. That change was welcome, but it could be too little, too late for the thousands of children who started school as the SNP took office. The failure to address the long-standing, systemic problems in the education system that have got us to where we are means that the problems that we face are numerous, so the solutions must be numerous, too. I hope that the recognition that we saw yesterday develops beyond vague statements, because it is vital that we reverse the decline. Much of that process will include addressing some of the issues that are outlined in the motion.

Class sizes are getting bigger, support staff numbers are dropping and attendance rates are plummeting. Teachers are being crushed under the weight of a policy that was developed on high without their involvement. They are drowning in paperwork, are struggling to find the time for lesson planning and are facing an exodus of their colleagues, who cannot bear the pressure any more. In some areas, we have probationer teachers filling vacancies, such is the scale of the recruitment and retention challenge.

The SNP has recognised what some of the solutions could be, and it has even committed to implementing some of them. However, so many teachers have been left waiting—in some cases, for more than 15 years. Not only have they been met with a lack of delivery, but things have actually got worse. Despite the Government committing in 2007 to reduce class sizes to 18 pupils or fewer, many teachers still have more than 30 pupils in their classes, and there are more classes with more than 18 pupils than there were back then. The pupil teacher ratio is flatlining rather than improving, which means that teachers are being stretched even more. A chronic shortage of non-contact time for teachers is compounding the problem. That is another promise that the SNP has failed to deliver on. The cabinet secretary knows that I have raised that issue with her on a number of occasions, and she knows that I remain disappointed that the Government has still not given a timescale for delivery.

I say to the Government, not only in relation to that policy, but in relation to every commitment that it announces, that, when it makes a promise, it should already have done the work to ensure that it can deliver. People understand that such issues are tricky and that time is needed to sort them, and they understand that the Government will want to talk to people about them. However, they do not understand why they are presented with things that they assume have been thought through only to realise that they have not or, ultimately, why they are let down when the commitments are never met. It is not fair that the Government is leading teachers and pupils up the hill and leaving them there, waiting for action that never comes.

According to the Scottish Government’s survey, more than two thirds of teachers have had enough and are considering leaving the profession due to the overwhelming workload and lack of support. At the same time, we are seeing a fall in teacher numbers, which is driven by a decline in initial teacher education for the second year in a row. There are also fewer support staff to help the teachers who are there.

The cabinet secretary will know that, earlier this year, the national discussion on education report stated that more than a third of children—as the PISA data points out, the figure is sometimes 40 per cent, and in some classrooms it is 50 per cent—are identified as having additional support needs. Those needs cannot be considered to be additional any more, and the cabinet secretary has accepted that. They are a fundamental feature of our education system, so I cannot understand why there was no mention of them in yesterday's statement. The ACEL data makes it clear that those children are less likely to reach the expected levels in reading, writing, numeracy, listening and talking at every stage. They are five times more likely to be excluded and they have lower attendance rates, especially in secondary school. To leave them out of the statement and rely on proposals that are more than three years old is not good enough.

We need up-to-date, targeted, ambitious action for pupils with additional support needs, and we need progress on the Angela Morgan review. Right now, despite the best efforts of teachers and school staff, educational inequalities are being exacerbated because the system is under so much strain that it is struggling to meet everyone’s needs, never mind pupils’ additional support needs.

Curriculum for excellence was intended and designed to deliver personalised learning, but I am afraid to say that the SNP has failed to give teachers the time, the space and the resources that they need to make it happen. It gives me no joy to say that the Government’s management of our education system is characterised by a lack of coherence, years of underinvestment, a failure to prioritise children’s needs, schools being starved of resources, overcrowded classrooms, outdated facilities and a lack of qualified teachers. That cannot go on any more.

If the cabinet secretary and ministers detect exasperation in my tone, it is because I really am exasperated and angry about the situation on behalf of pupils and teachers across Scotland, who have been let down. Scottish Labour believes that we must now take the necessary steps to support teachers and invest in our schools and that, if we do that, we can create a system that empowers young people to reach their potential.