Hansard

I thank Willie Rennie and the Liberal Democrats for bringing today’s debate—which is, I believe, the last education debate of the current session of Parliament—to the chamber and once again using Opposition time to debate these issues. It provides us with an important moment, at the end of this session, to reflect on whether the Government has actually delivered better life chances and opportunities for children and young people and for all learners. However, we should reflect on the fact that not only are we at the end of a five-year session of Parliament, but we have had almost two decades of SNP governance in Scotland.

It would be easy for us to reflect solely on the commitment that Nicola Sturgeon made, which we have heard articulated today, and the promises that she made as First Minister. However, we know that she is heading off into the sunset, so it is perhaps more crucial that we ask ourselves who is still in Parliament who was sitting beside Nicola Sturgeon when she made that commitment. It was the current First Minister who stood beside her as she made those commitments, and he stood there as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills when he made decisions about the life chances of working-class children and young people in this country and chose to downgrade their exam results in the Covid-19 pandemic. He was the man who promised us, at the beginning of the current session of Parliament, a recovery from Covid. We have heard a lot already today from the Government about Covid and the challenges that it has presented, but we were promised that that recovery would be the priority for this Parliament. That came off the back of the broken promise on the poverty-related attainment gap, so we were not exactly starting from a strong position.

We could rehearse many of the other broken promises that have littered not just this session of Parliament, but the preceding two decades. There was a promise of universal free school meals so that no child would go hungry—that was delayed and deflected, and not delivered in full. There were the jettisoned manifesto pledges of free iPads and free bikes for all children and young people, which were made with great fanfare at the last election and are sitting in tatters today. For completeness, we should not forget the Government’s previous promises on class sizes, new teachers and non-contact time for teachers, which were all abandoned or undelivered.

That is the reality, and we have to face it, because there will be people listening to the debate—teachers in our schools, parents of our young people or young people themselves—who are experiencing it daily. Time and again, cabinet secretary after cabinet secretary on the SNP benches has led those people up the garden path, promising them the earth, only for them to find nothing when they get there.

The consequences of that lack of action and delivery from the Government are felt acutely. Scotland has fallen down international league tables during the SNP’s time in Government, declining from being the best in the UK in maths, for example, to the second worst. Teachers, if they can find a job at all, are burning out and leaving the profession early at an alarming rate. There has been an unacceptable decline in classroom behaviour and a rise in violent incidents in our schools, at the same time as attendance rates have failed to return to pre-Covid levels.

Although the current cabinet secretary may not admit it, the reality will be an in-tray of challenges and problems a mile high for whoever comes into Parliament in the role of Government and, more broadly, for those who have to scrutinise that Government.

That is why I have been clear, since I took on the role of shadow education spokesperson for my party, that we have first to deal with order in our classrooms, and give our schools and teachers the support to deal with disruptive behaviour and the high levels of violence and low levels of attendance that are robbing children and young people of the opportunity to learn and putting teachers in an impossible position.

There is much that I could say, but my allotted time this afternoon is short. However, colleagues will be delighted to know that I will be closing for my party as well, so they will get another opportunity to hear a Paul O’Kane contribution this afternoon.

We have heard a lot this afternoon about reflecting on what we can do in the next session of Parliament. Of course, building consensus where it can be built is important, but we cannot escape the fact that we have had almost two decades of this governing party, which has made promise after promise and has delayed and deflected, and has not delivered.

I move amendment S6M-20956.1, to insert at end:

“and that effort should be made to reverse the decline in Scottish scores in international league tables, which has been seen since 2012.”

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