The Sunday Herald Political Hustings This Week: Education

Since 2007, the SNP has delivered real change in many areas of education – scrapping tuition fees, implementing a new school curriculum, reforming colleges, expanding free early learning and childcare and making schools meals free for all P1 to P3 children.

A re-elected SNP Government will do even more, particularly to close the gap in educational attainment. We have doubled funding for the Attainment Challenge to £160 million over 3 years, helping over 300 primary schools in the most deprived areas invest in more teachers, activities and resources. We will also invest the extra £100 million raised from reforming the council tax in our schools.

The SNP will keep education free, keep grants for our poorest students, maintain education maintenance allowances for the poorest 16 to 19 year olds and increase modern apprenticeships to 30,000 a year.

And we will expand free early learning and childcare to all 3 and 4 year olds and disadvantaged 2 year olds to 30 hours a week.

Iain Gray, Scottish Labour Opportunity spokesperson

Every child should have the best possible start in life, and their educational achievement should not be defined by how much their parents earn.

That is the way to a fairer Scotland; but it is also the route to a stronger economy. The single most important economic investment a government can make is in education.

Instead the SNP forced through a budget last month which cuts hundreds of millions of pounds from schools, from nurseries, from colleges and from Universities.

These cuts will harm the poorest children the most, and they will hold our country back from reaching our real potential for decades.

We need to close the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms so our people have the skills to compete for the jobs of the future. We can’t do that whilst cutting the budget for schools.

The SNP Government boast of their attainment fund but it misses out most of the children from poorer families who need extra support, and it does not replace the swingeing cuts.

We can do things differently with the new powers over tax. Faced with the choice between hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts which will harm the poorest and undermine our future prosperity or using the powers of the Scottish Parliament, Labour would use the powers to invest, making different choices on tax to the SNP and the Tories.

Under our plans the wealthiest few including those earning more than £150,000 a year would pay a bit more, and no child would be left behind

Liz Smith, Scottish Conservative Young People spokeswoman

The greatest gift we give to any child is the ability to read, write and count. Basic skills are essential because they open so many doors of opportunity, yet too many young people do not have these opportunities.

That is why the Scottish Conservatives have put so much focus on policies which will help to improve the teaching and testing of these skills, on developing additional support for learning, and on fully supporting our teachers and headteachers.

The leadership of headteachers is crucial but they need the freedom to run their own school. There must be a clear presumption that real power lies within the school and not within local authorities.

We also believe that much more has to be done to provide a childcare system which best suits the working patterns of modern families. We want to see a radical overhaul of the current system which does not allow many parents to access the facilities they want.

At the other end of the scale, we are fully committed to restoring college places which have been cut so drastically and have created skills shortages in the labour market, most especially among part-time students.

We also believe that the evidence of ‘free’ university tuition speaks for itself. Scotland is the worst part of the UK for application and admission rates for students from poorer backgrounds and there is less bursary help available to support them.

Education is a crucial issue for the forthcoming Scottish Election. Our focus will be on the quality of outcome.”

Liam McArthur MSP Libdem education spokesman

Liberal Democrats believe that a first-class education system is fundamental to creating a Scotland that is fit for the future. We cannot hope to achieve our potential as a country unless young people get the support they need at nursery, schools and in colleges.

In recent years Scotland has fallen down international education league tables. 152,000 college places have been lost. Targets on free early years care have been missed and missed again.

If we want our schools to be the best we need to give teachers the resources they need. This is why Liberal Democrats were the first party to suggest using the income tax powers of the Scottish Parliament to raise £475m a year to invest in education.

Our penny for education policy would let us match the pupil premium policy that has seen schools in England and Wales take big strides towards closing the attainment gap. Our plan would give schools £1400 for eligible primary school pupils to support things like one to one tuition. Secondary school pupils would receive £900.

We would also make a big investment in college funding to undo the damage of the botched SNP centralisation that has seen part-time courses plummet, and increase bursary support for students who need it. We would also boost free nursery care and head off the massive council cuts that are set to hammer education budgets.

Our plan for education is bold. The need for investment is urgent. We cannot afford to let children down.

Isla O'Reilly, Scottish Green's education spokesperson

From early years to university, Scottish Greens believe education is a fundamental right.

Scotland can be bolder at providing opportunities for learning and better at supporting educators. Scottish Greens promote a broad-based curriculum that enables learners to become well-developed citizens. We want our schools, colleges and universities to be places that foster curiosity and creativity. With greater financial support and increased teaching capacity, we can nurture the skills needed for Scotland’s society and economy.

Teachers at breaking point struggle to provide quality learning environments for young people. The Scottish Greens will call for 4,000 extra teachers over the course of the next parliament.

We will continue to challenge plans for a return to national testing in schools. More testing contradicts the basis of Curriculum for Excellence, increases bureaucracy for teachers, and means a return to harmful league tables.

Our curriculum should prepare pupils in practical ways for the challenges they will face throughout their lives. Literacy and numeracy must sit alongside interpersonal skills, creative skills, confidence, physical education and good mental health. Equality is a core Green principle and we want to see leadership on inclusive education policies, including a strong stance on bullying.

Greens will work with other parties to close the attainment gap with funding that targets pupils in need, and we strongly support Additional Support Needs provision. We support funding parity for college and university students, and stand firm against further marketisation of higher education. We should instead enable universities to concentrate on research and teaching.

James McEnaney. RISE education spokesman

Teachers’ working conditions are pupils’ learning conditions. That’s why RISE will support the teaching unions in their ongoing campaign to tackle the workload problems which this government refuses to take seriously.

RISE will also demand that the burden of assessment in our schools is tackled and that the well-being of young people - who have borne the brunt of failures in the delivery of National 4, National 5 and New Highers - is prioritised above all else.

Cuts to additional support needs provision must be reversed and teaching support staff treated with the respect that they deserve.

We will continue to back the Time for Inclusive Education campaign and call on government to fund LGBTI+ education both within schools and as part of teachers’ ongoing professional development.

RISE also unequivocally opposes National Standardised Testing which, despite the rhetoric of the SNP, Labour and the Tories, will do nothing whatsoever to address the shocking levels of educational inequality in our country. Instead, this regressive and politically-motivated move will lead to damaging league tables, increased 'teaching to the test' and the further undermining of the teaching profession.

We will also support Further Education lecturers’ campaign for genuine national pay bargaining and a fair pay deal. The enormous disparity in FE pay-rates across the country is categorically unacceptable, as is the expectation that educators should accept the imposition of yet another derisory pay offer.

Scotland’s teachers, parents and pupils can be confident that RISE will always be on their side.

David Coburn MEP, leader UKIP Scotland

Scotland was once famous for the finest education system in the world. The great Scottish entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and philosophers that changed the world confirm this.

Successive Conservative and Labour Secretaries of State for Scotland conspired to destroy fine schools like Alan Glens and Glasgow High which gave Scots an education as fine as Eton, at no or little cost to families of slender means. Many schools were forced to go private.

This disaster for Scottish education was followed by the coup de grace delivered by the SNP, currently solely responsible for the further decline in Scottish education.

Any able child, regardless of background or financial means, should have the same opportunities currently only enjoyed by those whose families have had to make tremendous sacrifices to give their children a top quality education.

UKIP wants grammar schools for the academically inclined and technical schools for those whose talents are more hands on, giving them top quality training.

UKIP wants to see teaching of commerce and entrepreneurialism to enable young Scots to build companies, remain in Scotland and employ their fellow Scots.

UKIP wishes to maintain the Scottish model of tuition fees for universities.

We must end the Scottish political elite's prejudice against those who want to better their lives and that of their families.

Scotland's greatest treasure is the intellect of her people and their pioneering spirit which gave the rule of law, parliamentary government and the economics of Adam Smith to the furthest flung corners of the Earth.