16 Jun 2020
The Scottish Conservatives have accused the SNP government of more failings on education after official figures show that fewer school leavers went on to positive destinations in 2018-19 compared with the previous year.
According to the latest figures released by the Scottish Government today 92.9% of school leavers in 2018-19 went on to positive destinations compared to 93.3% the year before, a fall of 0.4%.
In addition, while the attainment gap has narrowed slightly, this is only because fewer students from both most and least deprived backgrounds are now going to positive destinations.
Lastly, the percentage of pupils going on to higher education or employment also fell over the same timescale.
Jamie Greene, Scottish Conservative shadow education secretary said:
“The SNP government has indeed managed to narrow the attainment gap only by reducing the attainment of students from both the most and least deprived backgrounds.
“The SNP government’s failures on education across the board are now glaringly obvious with fewer students going to positive destinations, fewer students going on to higher education or employment and parents rightly are angry with them.
“The government was warned, long before the Covid crisis emerged, that attainment was slipping in our schools yet the government buried its head in the sand, refused to listen and delayed vital reviews into the curriculum.
“The SNP has already failed a generation of Scottish children and if it doesn’t get children back to school properly in August, it will fail many more to its utter shame.”
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