Highland Council bottom of class in education, according to national report
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A REPORT which puts Highland Council bottom of the class in education should be an "urgent wake up call" for the Scottish Government, according to north MSP, Edward Mountain.
He hit out after the report by the National Improvement Framework revealed a decline in standards in literacy, reading, writing, numeracy, listening and talking in the past four years.
Mr Mountain, Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said the local authority has the lowest percentage of P1, P4 and P7 pupils achieving the expected level Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).
The percentage of these pupils achieving the expected level CfE is 49.5 per cent in literacy, 61.8 per cent in reading, 53.7 per cent in writing, 71.5 per cent in listening and talking and 60.1 per cent in numeracy. In each category, that is the lowest achievement percentage in Scotland’s 32 council authorities, he says.
Mr Mountain said analysis by the Scottish Conservatives has shown that in 31 out of 32 of Scotland’s local authorities, including Highland Council, the percentage of pupils in primaries one, four and seven achieving the expected attainment levels in literacy, reading and writing, is now lower than in 2018-19.
He claims these figures are further evidence of how the SNP have damaged Scotland’s once world-leading education system during their 15 years in power.
Mr Mountain said it is "extremely concerning" that fewer and fewer pupils in the Highland Council are achieving the required levels of attainment in primary school and maintained "the figures fly in the face of SNP claims that education is their top priority."
He said: "Ensuring our pupils in Highland Council are leaving primary school with the required levels of basic attainment should always be a top priority.
"These figures make for deeply concerning reading given such dramatic falls in performance over the last few years in the Highlands.
"They are just the latest example of how SNP ministers have taken their eye off the ball and are failing our young people in our region."
The MSP added: "Scotland’s education system used to be world-leading but the SNP have taken a wrecking ball to that during their 15 years in power.
"This lack of attainment in the Highlands should be an urgent wake-up call to SNP ministers to actually match their rhetoric about education by giving our schools the resources they need."
Education committee chairman, councillor John Finlayson, described the comments as "political posturing" and accused Mr Mountain of using out-of-date information.
He said: "It is very disappointing to once again see Tory politicians making sweeping statements about Highland education and effectively criticising the staff working in our schools without taking time to actually take account of the most recent data. In many ways it smacks of desperation for someone to quote last sessions information at this stage in the year when the new data for the last school session will not be published until 13 December."
