Published 14 December 2023
Notebook by BILL HEANEY
What a shower of chancers the Labour administration on West Dunbartonshire Council are. What planet is it they are living on?
This week of all weeks, they expect the gullible local public to believe that “young people in West Dunbartonshire are continuing to perform well in senior phase exams”. That all is well in our schools.
This piece of ludicrous spin has been trotted out by their spin doctors in a week when the Holyrood parliament was told that Scottish education is “in freefall under the SNP”.
OK, it was the Conservatives who said this at Holyrood on Wednesday, but Labour gave no sign of disagreeing with them. You wouldn’t expect them to now, or would you?
The latest PISA report was up for discussion, comparing nations across the globe and highlighting the plummeting standards for reading, maths and science.
They raised a plethora of issues affecting Scotland’s education system, which “jeopardise not only young people’s education, but the safety of staff and students in schools”.
Shadow education secretary Liam Kerr, left, described the SNP’s record in education as ‘abysmal’, and stressed that his party would stand up for all those pupils [and teachers] who have been failed by them.
The Conservative MSP added: “Scotland’s education system, which was once the envy of the world, is in freefall after 16 years of SNP mismanagement.
“The latest PISA report highlighted that Scotland is going backwards when it comes to reading, maths and science – and lagging way behind performance levels in England.
“The survey also highlighted the alarming levels of violence and antisocial behaviour in Scottish schools.
“But PISA is just the latest evidence of the SNP’s shameful failure in education – and there would be even more had ministers not cynically pulled Scotland out of other international league tables to save face.
“A whole generation of children have been failed by the SNP’s broken promise to eradicate the poverty-related attainment gap and their disastrous implementation of Curriculum for Excellence, while teaching staff have been subjected to unprecedented levels of physical and verbal abuse.
“For 16 years, successive education secretaries have neglected our education system, and students and staff have suffered the consequences. It’s simply unacceptable.”
These are the reasons why the Scottish Conservatives say they have turned the spotlight on the SNP’s abysmal record in education, and outlined the measures they would take to restore standards in our schools.
I take it the Scottish Labour Party doesn’t disagree with one word of the ill-thought-out fable sanctioned by their comrades in West Dunbartonshire?
However, following a meeting of their Educational Services committee this week the Labour hierarchy were assured that all was well here. They swallowed it. Dunce caps all round for them then. It would have been six of the best in my time.
The report they received from their officials highlighted the measurements of attainment through the use of the never before heard of around here national online benchmarking tool Insight.
Insight, we are told, allows schools to evaluate their performance against local and national measures, as well as against a virtual comparator which reflect the results of young people from across Scotland with a similar social and attainment profile.
This year in West Dunbartonshire 2,320 young people were presented for 10,450 qualifications ranging from National 2 to Advanced Higher, with 81% achieving a passing grade, up from 75% in 2022.
Young people who sat their National 5 qualification maintained performance at 80% when compared with 2022, and the percentage of Highers passed increased by 1 percentage point to 78%.
The percentage for Advanced Higher decreased by 3% to 69% compared to 2022 with 253 presentations for Advanced Highers this year compared with 313 in 2022.
Figures over the last nine years show almost 100% of pupils passed Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) Level 1 or above. At Level 4 and above 90% achieved literacy and 80% in numeracy, according to Insight.
At National 4, 89% and National 5, 71% gained three or more qualifications. More than half of the pupils who sat Highers passed at least one and 37% achieved three or more.
The truth of the matter is that fewer pupils than ever are receiving gold stars on their jotters – and behaviour in schools and the public transport the pupils use to get them there and back is appalling.
And the so-called Curriculum for Excellence has been nothing short of a disaster.
Convener of Educational Services, Councillor Clare Steel, said: “Our young people have worked so hard and we congratulate them on their efforts. I must thank our dedicated teaching and support staff for their commitment to our young people’s education.
“This update on exam results allows us to benchmark our performance locally and nationally and will help us to ensure young people thrive in their education and beyond.”
What a lot of poppycock that is, absolute nonsense.
Councillor John Millar, Vice Convener of Educational Services, is longer in the tooth in local government, but he too has chosen to take the propaganda route with this comments.
He said: “This update on the SQA results will ensure we can review and build on the great success achieved by our young people.
“The information highlights areas where we are achieving well and helps us identify other areas where we will give additional support.
“As a Council we are committed to the education of our children and we strive to maintain and enhance the quality of our education provision.”
Has no one told him the SQA is not fit for purpose and earmarked for closure?
You cannot maintain something that doesn’t exist, councillor, but you can try, and making decisions like the shameful one Labour has to close Balloch Library, a gateway to reading and writing, is no way to go about it.
People of all age groups petitioned the Council to no avail to change their decision to close the library serving deprived Haldane, Jamestown, Old Bonhill, Balloch, Dalvait and Levenvale.