By KEZIA DUGDALE
AS the daughter of two teachers, it was well nigh impossible not to grow up with a sense of the true value of education. Education offers a first chance for individuals to blossom into the people they are capable of becoming. It offers a second chance to start again and to choose a new life. Almost every day I would hear stories from my parents about the difference a good education can make to the lives of young people. All too often, though, I heard about the unfair gap between the richest and the rest in our schools.
That was back in the 1980s. Sadly, that gap remains. Our schools have gone backwards. Nicola Sturgeon said recently that she wanted our schools to lead the world, but she had to be gently reminded that we did exactly that not too long ago. After nearly nine years of SNP Government that just isn’t the case any more.
Alongside the pupils themselves, staff in our schools work night and day to make sure everybody has a fair chance at getting on in life. They need help, though. I have visited schools and nurseries all across the country and the one consistent message I receive from every teacher I speak to is that they need greater resources. Whether it’s more classroom assistants, enough money to buy the materials teachers need or a bit of extra funding for specialist teachers, our schools need more support.
SNP cuts to education budgets are already having a negative impact. There are 4,000 fewer teachers in our schools compared to when the nationalists took office; class sizes are getting bigger; and the gap between the richest and the rest remains far too large. That’s before the latest round of cuts.
The SNP's budget is currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament. It will impose hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts on local public services – including our schools. We don't know what cuts the SNP are planning for future years because it is only presenting a one-year budget to get it through the election, but we know from the experts that the biggest cuts are likely to come in 2017/18 and 2018/19. For unprotected budgets like education that could mean cuts of 16 per cent.
It doesn't have to be this way, though. The Scottish Parliament has the power to stop these cuts, if only we have the political will to act. Last week I did just that.
I set out a plan, using the new powers we have today, to set a Scottish rate of income tax 1p higher than that set by George Osborne. This would raise an extra half a billion pounds, giving us the chance to stop the cuts to education and other services. Labour would protect education funding in real terms over the next five years in Scotland. Faced with the choice of asking people to pay a little bit more to invest or carrying on with the SNP's cuts, the choice was pretty simple for me – I won't support cuts to our nation’s future prosperity.
Investing in education isn’t just a moral choice – it’s an economic one too. To grow our economy and have the skilled workforce our businesses need, we have to invest in education. Business leaders such as Sir Tom Hunter speak regularly about the value of education to a successful economy. In our globalised world we must ensure that our young people have the skills they need to compete for the jobs of the future, jobs that we can’t even conceive of today. Unless we invest in education and close the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms, we will be locking thousands of young people out of the jobs of the future. That would be unforgivable.
The days of politicians saying they are for something but getting away without doing much about it are drawing to a close. Every party leader says education is a priority, but it’s not enough just to say it. As the US Vice President Joe Biden once said – don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.
I want to ask people who can afford it to pay a little bit more money so we can invest in education. It’s what I value above all else. It’s time the other parties did the same.
Kezia Dugdale is the Scottish Labour leader
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