Scotsman leader - SNP education test result is a resounding fail

In her first year as first minister, Nicola Sturgeon invited voters to judge her on her administration’s record on education.

“Let me be clear,” she said. “I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to do? It really matters.”

This was nearly ten years ago but evidence seems to mount with each passing week that both she and her SNP successors have dismally failed to improve standards in Scotland’s schools.

On the contrary, those standards appear to be declining at an alarming rate.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon asked to be judged on education during her first year in office | PA

Nearly one in three primary and secondary children are now absent from a day of school each fortnight, missing out on at least 10 per cent of the academic year.

The Scottish Government said the attendance rate across Scotland over the past year was 90.3 per cent - down around 3 per cent since pre-Covid levels.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh is today calling for an urgent overhaul of the education system to ensure it meets the challenges of the years ahead.

The authors highlight a “distinct lack of coherence between envisaged outcomes for Scottish education and skills and other policy areas”.

Meanwhile, in The Scotsman today we reveal growing concern over the fall in the number of pupils with legally-binding co-ordinated support plans for children with additional support needs (ASN).

The number of these plans in place has fallen by 61 per cent over the past decade, while the number of ASN pupils has doubled to more than 40 per cent of the entire school roll.

All of this comes against a backdrop of declining academic standards, with international tests consistently confirming that there are now fewer high-performing students than there were a generation ago.

Despite Ms Sturgeon’s fine words, the result over the intervening decade of her party’s test on the state of Scotland’s schools has been a resounding fail.