Promise to reduce class sizes 'will take 87 years to achieve'

The vow to reduce classes in the first three years of primary to a maximum of 18 children would take 87 years to fulfil at the current rate, said critics.

In some local authorities, class sizes are actually rising.

Nationally, only 13 per cent of children in the first three years of school are in classes of 18 or fewer. The average class size has barely fallen, down 23.3 to 23.2 from last year, and in P1 no progress was made at all, the figure remaining static at 21.1.

Fiona Hyslop, the education secretary, admitted the lack of progress was "disappointing" and said she would be talking to council representative body Cosla on how it could tackle the issue. However, she argued some local authorities had made strides towards the target.

She said: "Eighteen out of 32 local authorities are making progress on reducing class sizes and, overall, since 2006, there has been a 2 per cent rise in the number of P1-P3 pupils who are in class sizes of 18 or less.

"While this takes the figure to the highest it has been, we clearly need to make more substantial progress.

"However, I am pleased that we have seen a reduction of the number of P1-P3 pupils in classes of over 25 from 38 per cent in 2006 to 23 per cent in 2008. This shows many more early-years pupils are in smaller classes."

Rhona Brankin, Labour's education spokeswoman, said the policy was in tatters.

"Like so many of the SNP's pledges, this isn't worth the paper it's written on," she said. "Despite pupil numbers falling at our primary schools, the Scottish Government has somehow managed to keep class sizes close to static.

"It now looks like this unfunded policy is dead in the water. There is no way the SNP is going to get this figure to 100 per cent in the next two years."

Margaret Smith, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said: "The education secretary has dumped pledge after pledge – on student debt, on school building and now on class sizes."

Isabel Hutton, Cosla education spokeswoman, said councils had achieved the terms of the concordat deal struck with government, which was for local authorities to make year-on-year progress.

She said: "Against a backdrop of a deteriorating economic situation, I consider that the improvement in class sizes is a helpful step in the right direction.

"We need to bear in mind that there was no additional money in the local government settlement to support this policy."

She added: "Reducing P1-P3 class sizes to 18 was never going to be easy or happen overnight."

Murdo Fraser, the Conservative education spokesman, described the figures as a huge embarrassment.

He said: "At this rate, it will take 87 years for the class-size pledge to be met, in or around 2095. By that time, most of the pupils that the SNP said this policy would originally benefit will be looking forward to a telegram from Buckingham Palace."

Last year, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland claimed the real cost of delivering the policy would be 422 million.

LANGUAGE BARRIER

POLISH has overtaken Punjabi and Urdu to become the second language in Scottish schools.

There are currently 4,677 Polish-speaking children in state schools. Last year the language was the second in only 16 of Scotland's 32 local authorities.

Government statistics also show the number of languages with which teachers have to cope continues to soar, up from 138 to 147 this year.

Jim Docherty, of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, said no-one knew if the number of Polish pupils would continue to grow. He said: "What we do know is that in time they will become Scots. It is not acceptable to tell these children, the fact you can't speak English is irrelevant."