Warning of 'postcode lottery' in education

Published on Thursday 5 June 2008 22:25

EDUCATION is in danger of becoming a postcode lottery because of the way councils are funded, teachers' leaders warned yesterday.

The outgoing president of the EIS, Scotland's largest teaching union, said the quality of schooling children experienced could depend on where they lived as local authorities can now siphon money away from education budgets.

Speaking at the EIS annual congress yesterday, Kirsty Devaney said education would become increasingly fragmented as individual councils were encouraged to develop their own policies and practices.

She said: "The concordat (between the Scottish Government and local authorities] and the single-outcome agreements devolve so much to local authorities that it is hard to see how there will not be large-scale winners and losers in what is often called the postcode lottery."

The concordat funding deal, introduced by the Scottish Government last year, gives councils more say on how they spend their cash in return for fulfilling government election pledges.

Effectively, a struggling local authority could decide to take money out of education to subsidise another area.

Mrs Devaney said: "The fragmentation is growing and becoming more acceptable, just as it is becoming acceptable and desirable in society."

She described the announcement by Renfrewshire Council to scrap the maximum class size target of 20 pupils in S1 and S2 English and maths as an example of how children's education could differ from one part of the country to another.

Renfrewshire's move accompanies cuts in other local authorities, such as ending provision of Advanced Highers and refusing to meet the target to reduce class sizes in P1–3 to 18 pupils.

An EIS spokesman also cast doubt on the concordat's ability to deliver government promises.

Opening the EIS conference in Dundee, Mrs Devaney, a lecturer at Dundee College, called on all education professionals to work together to prevent standards falling.

Today, delegates are due to discuss whether to vote on taking industrial action over cuts in education budgets experienced in councils across Scotland.