Edinburgh pupils 'short-changed' with biggest class sizes in Scotland

Edinburgh pupils are being short-changed because the city has the largest class sizes in Scotland, a Tory MSP claimed today.

Edinburgh and East Lothian schools have the largest classes in Scotland Photo: John Devlin

Latest figures show there are 14.8 pupils for every teacher in the Capital – the joint highest pupil-teacher ratio in the country and significantly above those of other cities. It shares top spot with East Lothian.

Lothian Tory MSP Miles Briggs said: “Pupils in Edinburgh are being short changed by SNP ministers with the largest class sizes in Scotland, with very little improvement over the last seven years.

“Edinburgh and the Lothians have the fastest growing population in Scotland, so teachers will need to be hired at a significantly faster rate than other local authorities to improve class sizes.

“This year teachers will have the additional workload of setting pupils grades, with exams cancelled in the summer, which will be especially difficult for teachers in Edinburgh and East Lothian.”

Over the last seven years, Edinburgh’s pupil-teacher ratio rose from 14.9 in 2014 and 2015 to 15.1 in 2016, 2017 and 2018 before returning to 14.9 in 2019 and falling to 14.8 in 2020.

The East Lothian figure started at 15.2 in 2014, dropped to 15.1 in 2015, peaked at 15.4 in 2016, fell to 15.2 in 2017, then 15.1 in 2018 and 2019 before reaching 14.8 in 2020.

The pupil-teacher ratio in Midlothian is 13.7 and in West Lothian 13.9. The Scottish average is 13.3.

Aberdeen and Dundee both have a pupil-teacher ration of 13.7, while Glasgow’s is just 12.9.

The city council said the Capital’s success meant schools had to cope with an increasing number of children and schools were being expanded to meet the needs.

A spokesman said: “Edinburgh is a growing and successful city which brings with it an increase in our population and as a consequence more children in our schools. This presents a huge challenge but one we are proactively tackling through investing in new and upgraded schools and early years centres as demonstrated by our ambitions to invest over £500m in our learning estate over the next ten years.

“Every year, as part of our detailed planning we identify which schools may be over capacity at some point in the future and what may be the appropriate solutions to deal with this. In many cases this has involved building new classrooms on site and we have delivered over 170 high quality classrooms since 2012 to deal with these pressures.”

The Scottish Government said the latest statistics showed teacher numbers across the country had increased to 53,400, the highest since 2008 and the pupil teacher ratio of 13.3 was an improvement on the 13.6 last year. The average class size in primary schools was now 23.1, down from 23.5 in 2019 and the smallest since 2012.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The number of full time equivalent teachers in Edinburgh is at its highest since 2004. Through our Teaching Makes People campaign and work with universities, we are doing all we can to attract talented, committed people into teaching. The recruitment and deployment of teaching staff are matters for each local authority to determine.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.