SCOTLAND DESERVES BETTER

Catastrophic 13% increase in drug deaths over first nine months of year | Gap between schools in rich and poor areas growing in key subjects

- CHRIS McCALL, SALLY HIND

Gap between rich and poor pupils widens

Nats under fire over failure to deliver pledge

THE gap in attainment between schools in rich and poor neighbourhoods continues to be high and has even risen in some subjects, according to figures. 

A Scottish Government report published yesterday assessed levels of achievement in primary schools – by looking at pupils in Primary 1, 4 and 7 combined, as well as those in S3.

Despite the improvements from the past year, the attainment gap remained stubbornly high and even rose in some areas.

In 2022-23, the gap between primary pupils in literacy in the richest and poorest areas of Scotland was 20.5 percentage points, down from 21.3 points the previous year and 20.7 in 2018-19.

For secondary pupils, the gap was smaller – 13.7 points in the most recent year, down from 16.3 the previous year and 13.8 points in 2018-19.

In numeracy, the gap rose over the past five years, with primary pupils up from 16.8 percentage points to 17, despite a drop of 0.8 points in the most recent year.

In S3 pupils, the figure rose from 13.5 to 13.6, while there was a drop from 15 points in 2021-22.

Scottish Lib Dems education spokesman Willie Rennie said: “The poverty-related attainment gap may have now returned to 2018/19 levels but that leaves the Scottish Government miles away from closing it by 2026, either completely or substantially.

“The SNP seem to have no clue why the gap isn’t closing and why performance overall has slipped. Their reform agenda has stalled so they now seem to have no clue about how to improve the performance of Scottish education.”