Meeting of the Parliament 22 September 2015
We are dealing with the here and now and how we can make a difference. Because of the way in which the fund has been set up, two primary schools in Ferguslie Park are receiving funding. That proves that the funding is going to the right places. The clear objective to give all primary school pupils, regardless of their background, the best start in life is helping to ensure that we improve literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing in those primary schools.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics from June 2014 show that Scotland is the most highly educated country in Europe and is among the best educated in the world. More than two fifths of people in Scotland aged 25 to 64 are educated to college and university level. That outstrips Ireland, Luxembourg and Finland at the top of the table. The rest of Europe, including the UK as a whole, falls below two fifths.
In 2013, Scotland had the highest proportion of usual residents with national vocational qualifications at level 4 or above. That is not the case in England, to the extent that Joe Grice, the Office of National Statistics’s chief economic adviser, said:
“In terms of the proportion of the population going into higher and tertiary education, Scotland actually has just about the highest in the world. Scotland also does very well in terms of people in the working-age population (16-64) that have got a qualification at NVQ4 or above. Both of those are quite strong indications of a skilled workforce in Scotland.”
Even with all those good things happening in education, we need to overcome the barrier of poverty. That is not an excuse, and we must not underplay the role that poverty plays. An additional 100,000 Scots children will, as the cabinet secretary said, by 2020 be living in poverty because of the UK welfare reforms, and that is not counting the next round of cuts that are due in 2017-18. With a majority Conservative Government in Westminster, there is worse yet to come.
The Scottish Government will do all that it can to minimise the impact of those policies with the limited powers of this place, but we must ensure that all our children, in all parts of Scotland, are given the opportunity to succeed and to be everything that they can possibly be.
14:55