Scottish Government “not making a dent” in attainment gap

Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie has today said that ministers and education bosses are not making a dent in bringing down the attainment gap for those leaving school.

In 2015, Nicola Sturgeon declared that people should judge her government on its education record and in particular in tackling the attainment gap between the least and most deprived pupils.

However, figures published by the Scottish Government today show that:

Among those with one pass or more at SCQF Level 5 or better, the attainment gap remains unchanged between 2018/19 and 2022/23 at 22.3 percentage points.

Among those with one pass or more at SCQF Level 6 or better, the attainment gap widened between 2018/19 and 2022/23 from 35.8 percentage points to 36.9 percentage points.

Willie Rennie said:

“As far as closing the attainment gap goes, we have had a lost half decade.

“These figures show that the Scottish Government are not making a dent.

“When I speak with teachers they identify a series of roadblocks: behaviour, absence rates, lack of support for Additional Support for Learning and unmanageable workloads which has been allowed to flourish under the SNP.

“Education is one of the routes out of poverty but this government have not succeeded it creating opportunities for people to do that.”