Sturgeon defends education record amid further setbacks

Ms Sturgeon said the findings made her “utterly determined” to press ahead with her educational reforms, and predicted the parties attacking her today would cynically attack her solutions tomorrow.

With four weeks to polling in the general election, and the opposition keen to put the SNP’s record under scrutiny, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale also accused Ms Sturgeon of failing the NHS by underpaying nurses and not recruiting enough consultants.

The First Minister said she would take no lessons from Labour on the NHS given the many problems she had been obliged to correct after becoming Health Secretary in 2007.

At First Minister’s Questions, Ms Davidson said: “Today in Scotland in an S2 class of 30 pupils, on average, five can't write properly. That's double the number just four years ago. When the First Minister sees statistics like these does she feel embarrassed, ashamed or both?"

She added: "We like to pride ourselves in Scotland that our education system was the best in the world and after 10 years of this SNP government, we can do so no longer."

Ms Sturgeon said she would not “diminish the significance of the SSLN, which also showed the writing performance of P4 and P7 pupils in decline, however more than 80 per cent of S3 pupils met the required standard.

She said: "What I feel is utterly determined, determined to carry on with the changes we're making in Scottish education so that we continue to see the improvements in attainment and progress in closing the attainment gap."

Ms Davidson also cited evidence from trainee teachers to Holyrood’s education committee this week, which suggested many teachers lacked the skill to teach 11-year-olds numeracy.

She said: "Bright young trainees are starting their careers in Scotland without the tools they need to do their job and that's not me saying it, that's what they told this parliament."

She criticised the SNP government for spending more time debating the constitution in the past year than it had debating education, health, transport and justice combined.

Ms Sturgeon insisted: “We've got good performance across education in Scotland but there are areas where we have recognised that we need to do better and this government is getting on with the job of taking the action that will deliver these improvements.

“When Ruth Davidson talks about the time spent in this chamber debating the constitution, what she's trying to distract attention from is that that has been time debating the implications of Brexit, the Brexit disaster that the Tory party is leading this country into."

Ms Dugdale said vacant NHS consultant posts had risen six-fold since 2011, from 30 to 180, yet the government had just advertised for to £400m of private locum work.

That reflected a decade of “mismanagement”, she said.

Criticising the SNP for not raising nurses’ pay, she said: “The brutal truth is that our hospitals have to turn to the private sector because they don't have enough doctors in the first place.

"That's the reality of the complete and utter mess she has made of our NHS. Why can the SNP find £400m for private health companies but it can't find money to pay our NHS nurses?”

The First Minister said her government treated NHS workers “as fairly as possible” given the funding settlement from Westminster, and more generously than in Labour-run Wales.

She also said there had been a ban on compulsory redundancies in the public sector.

“I don't think it is fair for Kezia Dugdale simply to dismiss the fact that we have done more than any other government in the UK to try to help public-sector workers in this difficult time."

She added: “I'll take no lessons on private-sector involvement in our NHS from the Labour Party, who signed PFI contracts in our NHS which continue to drain the budgets.

"The reality is reliance on the private sector has reduced under this government."