SCOTLAND must "step up to the plate" and do more to improve social mobility, a former Labour Cabinet Minister has insisted.
In a speech in Glasgow, Alan Milburn, chairman of the UK Government's Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, praised progress made on supporting children in the early years but said more was needed to ensure Scotland was a fair country.
He said there were 2.3 million children living in poverty in the UK. That represents nearly 20% and while Scotland has a lower rate of 17%, this, according to respected think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, is set to rise to nearer 23% by 2020.
"These figures should shock and shame us all. Child poverty strangles progress. The more children there are in poverty the less social mobility there will be," declared Mr Milburn.
He pointed out that only one in 40 pupils from Scotland's most deprived households achieved three As in their Highers in 2011, compared with one in 10 across all income levels;
He said Scotland had the lowest levels of poor students in higher education institutions in the UK, with just in excess of 27% of students from working-class backgrounds in 2011/12. In 2004, 33% of the most senior civil servants in Scotland were privately educated, when fewer than 5% of Scottish children were educated privately.
Mr Milburn said: "The link between demography and destiny has remained stubbornly unbroken. If we are to make social progress that must change. It can only be done by enshrining as the twin objectives of education policy the raising of educational standards and the narrowing of educational inequalities.
"The one without the other will doom Scotland and Britain to lasting social division. Worse than that, a fast lane/slow lane education system can only deepen division. Raising the bar when it comes to schools standards is not enough if it doesn't also mean closing the attainment gap. Concerted action is needed."
The commission chairman noted that in Scotland the decision not to impose tuition fees had helped remove one barrier to higher education participation – fear of debt. But he went on: "The challenge now is to make the changes necessary to ensure that Scottish universities are open to the widest pool of talent.
"In 2010/11 just 2.7% of students at St Andrews were from Scotland's most deprived communities. There has been some progress ... Glasgow can be proud that it has the highest rate of participation from poorer areas across any of Scotland's most elite universities, but there is a very long way to go."
The Commission will publish its first report on social mobility in September.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article