Rennie demands answers on attainment gap

Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie MSP today challenged Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth on the SNP's promise to close the poverty related attainment gap.

In the most recent set of SQA exam results, the gap between results of those from the richest and poorest parts of Scotland increased compared with last year and before the pandemic. For those sitting National 5 exams, the attainment gap reached its highest ever level.

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Rennie asked the Education Secretary how confident she was that the SNP’s promise to close the poverty gap by 2026, a promise made eight years ago, could be delivered.

Mr Rennie said:

“The Education Secretary knows that this government will be measured on its promise made in 2016 to close the poverty related attainment gap.

 “It does seem that the SNP government are focused more on finding excuses than on closing the poverty related attainment gap.

“So, what does the Education Secretary say to those thousands of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who the promise was made to but has failed to be delivered so far?”

Additional Information:

You can read more about the attainment gap in this year’s exam results here

In 2015, Nicola Sturgeon declared that people should judge her government on its education record and particularly on tackling the gap between the least and most deprived pupils