SNP (Scotland National Party) education policy that is currently being implemented is found to be causing more damage to students from poor backgrounds. Only about a quarter of teachers believe it has helped poor students and 92.4 percent of teachers believe that cutting of council education funding adversely affected students from poor backgrounds.
Scotland National Party (SNP) education policy is hurting children from poor backgrounds. A trade union survey showed that only 26 percent of teachers believed that the policy helped students from poor backgrounds. The £120m-a-year fund had been projected to solve many of the problems affecting poor students but the survey concluded that it has affected them negatively.
The poll also showed that 60 of teachers believed that the council education cuts that were implemented by SNP has hurt poor students the most.
Problems with the education policy
SNP has come under fire for implementing such a policy from opposition parties, education experts and teachers unions. Labour MSP Mary Fee could not hide her frustration with the education policy, condemning the government for what she termed as an embarrassment in the Scottish education system. She also targeted the education secretary John Swinney for his failure to plan on how best to implement the policy.
First minister Nicola Sturgeon, however, reiterated that her government remains focused on ensuring that quality education is accessible to all. She said that the government had made a lot of progress in closing the gap in performance between students from poor backgrounds and the rich. She also pointed out that some funding that had been allocated to the education department had already been used to employ new teachers, purchase school equipment and promotion of classroom leaders.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union, which represents teachers, which represents teachers and was responsible for the poll, also found that 92.4 percent of those interviewed agreed that reduction of council funding adversely affected the poor kids.
Scottish government acknowledged poll results
Scottish government acknowledged that they had seen the poll and released a statement through the government spokesperson who said,
We know that closing the attainment gap will take time but we also know that what we are doing is having a tangible effect.
Attainment Scotland Funding evaluation, published in June 2019 findings were also used by the spokesperson. The finding had shown that 88 percent of teachers were of the opinion that the policies being implemented were closing poverty-related attainment gap.
The spokesperson also said that the government was working hard to ensure that this attainment is achieved. To achieve this, however, was a process that required patience, and the spokesperson said that in the next five years, the conditions will have improved significantly.
