SOME of Scotland's most vulnerable children continue to fall behind in education despite measures being put in place to support them, a new report says.
MSPs on the Scottish Parliament's education committee said the continuing gap in attainment between pupils in care and the rest of the school population was unacceptable.
Scottish Government figures show that levels of attainment for many looked-after children are very low in comparison with other children.
While 56% of school-leavers gain five or more qualifications, only 4.7% of children looked after away from home and 0.5% of children looked after at home achieve the same results.
Stewart Maxwell, the committee convener, said: "Since devolution there have been a range of policies aimed at improving the educational attainment of such children.
"However, it is clear that the attainment gap remains unacceptably wide."
It is estimated that there are approximately 16,000 looked-after children in Scotland with nearly 5500 children looked after at home.
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