SNP misses deadline to cap class sizes

Published on Wednesday 3 March 2010 21:55

THE Scottish Government has admitted it will fail to legislate a new limit on class sizes in time for this year's school intake.

Critics said the admission showed that the government's key election pledge on class sizes was a "sham" and accused the government of "letting down" councils and parents.

Fiona Hyslop, the previous education secretary, promised in September to make it law that a primary-one class could not contain more than 25 pupils.

The move was to help councils reduce class sizes towards the government target of 18 for the first three years of primary.

However, an existing statutory limit of 30 pupils in primary one has resulted in parents legally challenging councils that tried to limit class sizes. The parents successfully argued their children could not be denied a place if the class was under the legal maximum of 30.

As a result, several councils have raised class sizes to avoid further expensive legal battles.

John Stodter, general secretary of the Association of Directors of Education, warned that the failure to legislate would leave councils powerless.

He said: "We were expecting there would be clarity for this August's intake. Now, local authorities won't be operating in a clear legislative context. It is not going to make it easy for local authorities to reduce class sizes."

He warned that councils would have no choice but to accept children above the 25 limit in primary one.

Ken Macintosh, Labour's schools spokesman, said the failure meant local authorities would have no protection against any parents appealing for a place at a popular school.

He said: "The government are all over the place with its class size policy – it is simply a sham. Class sizes are now increasing. They have failed to deliver on their promise of legislation – they are incompetent and have misled the public and let down councils."

Elizabeth Smith, Conservative schools spokeswoman, said that as schools were currently going through their enrolment procedures, they needed the legislation now. She said: "Yet again, another promise that cannot be delivered."

Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles said: "The SNP government are messing up this entire issue of reducing class sizes.

"What we need from them is clarity of purpose and they are failing on this yet again."

The Scottish Government argued that lack of legislation would not affect the new target for 20 per cent of all children to be in classes of 18 or less in the first three years of primary.

A spokesman said: "While it is not possible to now legislate to meet the deadline for placing requests made before 15 March, we still intend to consult on regulations and have them in place by the autumn.

"It is unlikely that placing requests will impact upon local authorities achieving 20 per cent of P1-P3 pupils in classes of 18 or fewer, as councils will be targeting schools in areas of deprivation where placing requests are less common and class size reduction is likely to have the greatest impact."