Nicola Sturgeon wants "substantial progress" to be made towards ending the achievement gap in Scotland's schools within the next decade.

The First Minister was speaking as she launched the controversial new National Improvement Framework for education, which will bring in national tests for primary school pupils.

Teaching unions have voiced concern about the move, raising fears it will see a return to school league tables.

But Ms Sturgeon, who has made closing the gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds a key aim for her Government, said the tests would for the first time provide "clear and consistent" information about how children are performing in class.

The tests are being piloted this year before being brought in across Scotland in 2017 and will look at reading, writing and numeracy in P1, P4, P7 and S3 to evaluate pupils' progress.

It comes on the back of a £100 million drive to help schools in the most disadvantaged areas over the next four years via the Scottish Government's attainment fund.

Ms Sturgeon said: "Nobody can be comfortable living in a country where different levels of wealth create such a significant gap in the attainment levels - and therefore the life chances - of so many children.

"That's why the Scottish Government is taking concerted action now. Our overall aim is to raise standards everywhere, but to raise them most quickly in the areas that most need it.

"We can only drive rapid and significant improvement if we can understand whether what we are doing is working.

"At the moment, nearly all of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland conduct some form of standardised assessment to monitor children's progress. However those assessments aren't conducted on a consistent basis. As a result there is currently a lack of information about overall performance at both a national and local level.

"That's why today, after three months of extensive consultation, we are launching a National Improvement Framework for Scottish education.

"It is based on four key priorities for education - raising attainment, closing the attainment gap, improving health and wellbeing, and improving employability. It sets out measures for school improvement, school leadership, supporting teachers and engaging parents."

She stressed that teachers' judgement would be "at the heart of the system", adding this would be "informed by a system of new national standardised assessment which will provide better and more consistent data about our children's performance than we have ever had before".

The First Minister said: "This teacher judgement data, underpinned by the new assessments, will be collected and published nationally each year to give us - for the very first time - a clear and consistent picture of how children and young people are progressing in their learning.

"The information will allow us over the next few years to set clear, specific and meaningful milestones on the road to closing the attainment gap.

"I want to be clear today that my personal determination is that we are able to see and demonstrate progress on both excellence and equity by the end of the next parliament.

"And, as a country, I believe that we should all aspire to making substantial progress in completely eliminating the attainment gap within the next decade."