SNP to 'abandon' key pledge on class sizes

Published on Tuesday 22 September 2009 22:10

THE Scottish Government will today effectively abandon its election pledge for maximum class sizes of 18 when it announces a new legal limit of 25.

In a keynote speech, education secretary Fiona Hyslop will say that a new statutory maximum of 25 pupils will be introduced. Current regulations put 30 as the maximum per class.

But the administration will stop short of imposing the SNP's manifesto commitment for a limit of 18, prompting opposition claims that the government has been misleading parents, teachers and children over the flagship pledge.

While Ms Hyslop is expected to say that a commitment to a maximum of 18 remains the goal, the absence of new legislation has left questions over the commitment to achieving this.

Many local authorities have already claimed they do not have enough money, staff or classrooms to deliver what the government wants.

Labour's education spokeswoman, Rhona Brankin, said: "The cull of the 18 class size pledge has been on the cards for months. It's now thought that the policy will be ripped up and thrown away.

"This is a personal blow to Fiona Hyslop. For months now Labour has insisted that the SNP were never going to make their manifesto commitment.

"The SNP government has not given councils one extra penny to pay for the policy. Class sizes have actually been rising in the past year and that is with falling school rolls."

Liz Smith, the Conservative education spokeswoman, said: "Over a year ago I called for the SNP to abandon this unworkable and detrimental policy. As a recent poll showed, it is nowhere near being the priority of ordinary Scots. It was nothing more than a cynical exercise in buying votes.

"It all adds up to one thing – the SNP has misled parents and, as with the pledge to dump student debt, was only interested in conning the electorate. Alex Salmond and Fiona Hyslop should be ashamed."

The SNP's manifesto promised to introduce maximum class sizes of 18 for primaries one, two and three.

But the policy has been in trouble for some time.

Councils have been complaining that the pledge has been impossible to implement while they struggle to find funding to tackle crumbling classrooms and teacher shortages. The pledge has also been rocked by a series of legal challenges by parents who want to choose which primary school they send their children.

The challenges have been based on the fact that currently the only maximum primary class size underpinned by the law is 30 – a number based on regulations passed in 1999.

The government's move to cut that limit to 25 has been made to prevent more legal action being taken by parents.

The maximum of 30 allowed parents to successfully take councils to court in order to get their children into primary schools outwith their catchment area.

The court cases followed a landmark action which enabled a mother to send her daughter to a school of her choice, even though West Lothian Council had previously blocked the move on the grounds that the class was already full.

She won her case against the council on the basis that the legal limit was 30 and therefore the class was not full.

The court case forced East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire to ignore class-size targets set out by politicians and allow up to 30 children in primary one.

In the summer, Edinburgh City Council called for the target limit of 18 pupils per class in the first three years of school to be made legally binding.

Edinburgh has lost at least ten legal challenges from parents refused entry to the school of their choice.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We need to ensure that legislation enables local and national government to set class size limits and supports the rights of parents to make placing requests, and we are currently considering whether the existing legislation needs to be changed across the country.

"The class sizes pledge is a firm commitment of both Cosla and the Scottish Government, enshrined in the Concordat, and we are actively discussing progress and next steps with every council."

"Already we have advanced towards our goal – with pupil-teacher ratios at an all-time low of 13.1, and across Scotland class sizes in primary schools have fallen to an all-time low of 23.2. The Scottish Government remains entirely committed to making progress towards delivery of P1-3 class sizes to a maximum of 18."

CLASS RULE

A MOTHER took legal action against West Lothian Council last year when her daughter was denied entrance to a primary school on the grounds that the class was full as it had the maximum 30 pupils.

West Lothian agreed she could move her daughter to the school of her choice, as there were fewer than 30 pupils in the class.

One interpretation of the landmark case is that any parent could get their child into any primary school as long as the maximum class size did not exceed 30.