Education crisis: After Scotland's Pisa results fall 'off a cliff', Curriculum for Excellence must be reviewed – Scotsman comment

Scottish pupils’ performance in maths and science is now below the average for countries in the OECD group – and no one but the SNP-led government is to blame

Scotland’s education system used to be world-renowned and, once upon a time, this country was the best-performing part of the UK in that most vital of subjects, maths. In noting this particular statistic, we are not harking back to the relative glories of long ago but as recently as 2006 to 2012.

So new figures showing that the performance by our pupils in reading, maths and science has fallen dramatically on the Pisa world rankings – to the point where Scotland is now below the OECD average for the latter two subjects for the first time – represent a damning indictment of the SNP-led government, in charge since 2007.

It is they who are responsible for ensuring our children get a decent education and it is they who introduced the supposed ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ and other policies that have singularly failed a generation. On becoming First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon asked to be judged on education. Yesterday was judgment day for Sturgeon and her successors.

Scottish ministers’ lame attempt to blame Covid may provide the most fervent of nationalists with an excuse with which to delude themselves, but it is at odds with the figures. The drop in Scotland’s scores was sharper than in both England and the UK as a whole, despite similar lockdown rules. Let no one dare suggest that it is the children themselves who are somehow to blame. They are the ones who have been let down.

Writing in this newspaper, the respected educationalist Professor Lindsay Paterson said Scotland’s results had “dropped off a cliff”. While accepting the reasons would be complex, he added that “an inescapable culprit” was the Curriculum for Excellence, introduced in 2010. It should now be urgently reviewed.

Some think the Scottish Government is unlikely to consider this because it is busy with other educational reforms. However, perhaps if SNP ministers were less obsessed with independence papers about their version of dreamland and more interested in the reality of Scotland today, they would manage to find the time.

Given education is the fundamental building block of the economy and society, yesterday’s Pisa report was a dire warning that cannot be ignored.