The Scottish Government has presided over a decade of failure on education, Scottish Labour has said.

The party used its debating time at Holyrood to put further pressure on the Education Secretary, who has delayed his planned reforms to the sector.

Labour's education spokesman Iain Gray said John Swinney should ditch his reforms entirely and instead "invest properly in schools" and address the teacher shortage.

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The party's motion for debate accused the SNP administration of "failing" pupils, teachers and parents.

It states "many teachers have lost confidence" in the official bodies Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority, and also that "disappointing" international figures show "a decline in reading, maths and science scores in Scotland".

Labour also highlighted staff levels and resources for schools, claiming since the SNP came to power in 2007 teacher numbers have fallen by 4,000 and local government budgets have been cut by £1.5 billion since 2011.

Mr Swinney described the motion as "pathetically miserable" and "disgraceful".

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The debate followed confirmation that the Education Bill, which was originally meant to be published early in 2017, will be published "some time during 2017" as Mr Swinney looks over some 1,100 responses to a school governance review.

The governance review proposes more powers for headteachers in a major shake-up of the way schools are run.

Mr Gray said: "The responses to that review tell him that the reforms it proposes miss the point.

"Isn't the real reason government have delayed their great reforms that the response is telling them they are the wrong reforms, and what is actually needed in our schools is more resource, more teachers and more time?"

He added: "Yes, our schools need reform.

"But, above all, our schools need more teachers with more support, more time and more resources to do their job.

"That is the core reform. Failure to deliver it is the defining characteristic of the SNP decade in charge of education.

"Don't delay your reform programme, Education Secretary. Ditch it now and start investing properly in schools. That's what parents and teachers and SNP councillors are telling you."

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Mr Swinney said he "utterly refuted" the characterisation of Scottish education by Labour.

"The government has set out in the national improvement framework, an agenda for strengthening Scottish education from the foundations that we have.

"I am first to accept ... that there are challenges that exist within Scottish education and there is an opportunity for political parties in this Parliament to work with the government in taking forward the agenda and contributing to the agenda.

"What concerns me about the characterisation of Scottish education from Mr Gray today is the unwillingness to acknowledge the strength of performance that has been achieved.

"Whether that's the 30% increase in Higher passes since 2007 or the increase to 93.3% of positive destinations of young people leaving education, or the fact that nine out of 10 young people from deprived communities are now continuing in education."

Conservative education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "When it comes to making our assessment of where we stand on the Curriculum for Excellence just now, there are of course very good things going on in Scottish education and that's something that we need to recognise."

She said, however, Mr Gray was right to flag up "the great difficulties" currently in Scottish education.

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Describing the challenges facing the sector as "extensive", she told MSPs: "The Pisa scores show us exactly where we have to go to ensure that we are bringing up Scottish education, not just for those in the lower attainment group but for those in the highest attainment group as well."

She went on: "We also know we have problems in teacher recruitment ... and we learnt last week that we have serious shortages in key subjects like English and maths. That's a serious worry for Scottish education."

Green MSP Ross Greer, a member of Holyrood's Education Committee, welcomed Labour's focus on education but said their motion should have contained more solutions.

He criticised Government plans for standardised assessments and the "deeply unnecessary" governance review.

"I believe that this parliament remains completely unconvinced by the focus on governance and structure when the issues are clearly policy, delivery and resource," he said.

He added: "There simply isn't the evidence to suggest that these assessments of six-year-olds are needed. What teachers need is the time and resource to support their teachers."

Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott, who sits on the same committee, proposed that education needs "a change to the culture of conformity".

He said: "The very core of Curriculum for Excellence is to open out teaching; an engaged and an enhanced profession to provide a broad landscape for schools and to encourage innovation, yet the opposite is more often what we find."