The publication yesterday of the Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland 2012 reveal a number of broken promises by the SNP Government and City Council.
The pupil-teacher ratio in Dundee Primary Schools has increased in the past year and is now the highest it has been since 2007. Each year under the SNP this has been inching up from 11.7 in 2007 up to 12.3 in 2012. I think parents and teachers can see which direction this is going and where the cuts are biting.
With regard to the statistics for P1 classes of 18 or under, the progress apparently made in the past year is probably illusory in Dundee. This year these statistics have included in these figures some of the largest classes in the city with up to 36 pupils in one classroom but with two teachers. This arrangement is being used in some of our Primary schools where there have been rising numbers of pre-fives entering P1 classes and this has been the only way of accommodating them. This is hardly the small class that parents imagined. It's worth recalling that the figures for the percentage of pupils in P1-P3 (not just P1) in classes in 18 or less was supposed to be 100 per cent by 2011 - this is one of the SNP's manifesto promises for the May 2007 Holyrood Elections.
Finally the expected information on absences and exclusions from our schools are not included this year. In the small print we find out that these figures will now only be collected and published every two years, thus reducing the information available about trends in pupils not attending school and those that are excluded. This is a backward step which I can only assume is to keep the figures out of the public eye.
