ADULTS in Glasgow have some of the poorest levels of formal education anywhere in the UK, according to new figures.
Statistics collected by the UCU lecturers union show parts of the city have high proportions of adults who have no qualifications compared to the rest of the country.
There is also a wide gulf in attainment between Glasgow and Edinburgh with five out of Glasgow's seven Westminster constituencies having an above-average number of working-age people with no qualifications.
In Edinburgh, only one of its seven constituencies falls below the average.
The Westminster constituency of North-East Glasgow has the highest proportion of adults without any qualifications in Britain with 27.5%, closely followed by neighbouring Glasgow East at 26.2%.
Fourteen out of the top 15 constituencies for low attainment in Scotland are in west and central Scotland, with only Edinburgh East falling in the top 15 with 14.9% of adults without qualifications.
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine has the highest level of attainment in Scotland, with just 4.3% of residents holding no qualifications.
UCU Scotland official Mary Senior said: "This research shows that access to the benefits that education brings is heavily rationed in Scotland today with some constituencies in the west having almost seven times more people without qualifications than others in the east of Scotland.
"We live in a fast-changing knowledge economy where education is vital to improving employment chances, life chances and for society.
"It is this knowledge economy that will drive economic growth and enhance social mobility.
"Politicians must continue to increase access to educational opportunities. Given the opportunity, everyone can benefit from education."
However, a spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council attacked the figures as "flawed".
"They do not reflect the true picture of education attainment in Glasgow because some of the adults included in the statistics will be over the age of 40 and at school when examinations were not universally available to them," she said.
"Just this week, we have published the positive destination figures for our young people and they are at an all-time high."
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said ministers were taking action to ensure more people had access to qualifications.
"We are maintaining college numbers, have a record number of Scots in higher education and we have also guaranteed a place in training or education for every 16 to 19-year-old," she said.
"Progress is being made, as can be seen from the welcome increase in the number of Glasgow school-leavers going into positive destinations, and particularly higher education.
"We are working to raise attainment in our schools to help ensure our employees of the future have the qualifications they need."
UCU ranked the 632 Westminster parliamentary constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales according to the percentage of working-age people aged 16 to 64 who have no qualifications.
Scotland's national rate for people without qualifications – 11.6% – is higher than the British average of 10.7% and the equivalent rate for England of 10.4%.
The UCU pointed to evidence which showed the benefits to the economy of funding people to improve their education, and described the analysis as the reason why politicians of all parties should ensure that everyone has access to the opportunities that education provides.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, public spending on education as a proportion of GDP is, at 5.6%, lower in the UK than in many competitor countries and is significantly lower at both pre-primary and tertiary levels.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article