Opposition politicians have hit out at the Scottish government’s announcement that it will be investing millions more next year in closing the attainment gap, saying the money is being used to maintain basic services rather than support poor pupils.
Another £50 million in Scottish Attainment Challenge funding is set to be invested next year in the nine councils and 74 schools identified as having the highest levels of deprivation, education secretary John Swinney announced this morning.
But Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said that, as a result of “swingeing cuts to school budgets”, the money was being used to plug gaps in funding, rather than improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.
Mr Gray continued: “Rather than making a song and dance of distributing money that has already been announced, John Swinney would be better off getting his government to properly fund our schools in the first place, so this funding is genuinely additional.”
Yesterday it transpired that Dundee City Council was scrapping swimming lessons for primary pupils.
The authority said schools that wanted to continue teaching pupils to swim could use Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) to pay for lessons, leading to accusations that the council was cutting services and trying to “raid this pot” to replace them.
Concerns about how cash is used
The PEF gives schools £1,200 per pupil on free school meals. Like the rest of the £750 million Scottish Attainment Challenge fund, it is supposed to be targeted at disadvantaged pupils.
Last week, Tes Scotland revealed that schools in North Ayrshire using their PEF to pay for campus cops had been accused of misusing the cash by the charity Aberlour Child Care Trust.
Concerns have been also been raised by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who said “serious questions” needed to be asked about how the cash was being spent.
To announce the latest allocation of Scottish Attainment Challenge funding, Mr Swinney visited Clydebank High in West Dunbartonshire - one of the first local authorities to take part in the Scottish Attainment Challenge.
The school was described in a recent inspection report by Education Scotland as making “very good progress with improving learning, raising attainment and narrowing the poverty-related attainment gap”.
Mr Swinney said a recent evaluation of the Scottish Attainment Challenge had found that three-quarters of school heads believed the attainment gap had started to close, and almost all expected progress in the next five years.
He continued: “Improving the education and life chances of our children and young people is the defining mission of this government.
“Central to this is the Scottish Attainment Challenge, which is supporting hundreds of schools to develop approaches to improve literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing that raise attainment and help close the poverty-related gap.”
