Thread by @DeanMThomson

John Swinney is no longer the education secretary, being moved by the FM to become ‘minister in charge of covid recovery’ (still no health secretary appointed yet)

So let’s review John Swinney’s five years heading up Scottish education.
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1️⃣ He abandoned a flagship education bill

Swinney dropped a major education reform which would have transferred power over the running of schools, the curriculum and budgets from councils to headteachers.

He buckled because the teaching unions told him to.
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John Swinney claimed standards were improving, and its thanks to an absence of that flagship SNP education bill

“It is clear to me we would not have come so far in such a short period of time if we had relied on introducing an Education Bill.”
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Of course it remains unclear even to this day what improvements in standards Swinney was referring to, since Scotland is performing so poorly that the SNP have ditched Scottish participation in international education assessments
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Swinney pulled Scotland out of two international assessments claiming a need to save money.

Naturally it was a total coincidence that the assessments axed all revealed education outcome declines...

Funny that...
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2️⃣ He buckled a second time under teaching union pressure

Swinney gave in to the powerful Educational Institute of Scotland union a second time, granting teachers a huge 13.5% pay rise over three years after threats of strike action.
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3️⃣ After abandoning the education bill, agreeing 13.5% pay rise to teachers, he presided over worst ever PISA performance in maths & science

In 2019, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study revealed Scotland’s worst ever in maths & science outcomes
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Stagnation & mediocrity in Scottish education under SNP:

➡️ Scotland's science score has dropped in every survey since the SNP came to power in 2007
➡️ The 11 point improvement in reading skills only brought Scotland's score back close to 2012 level (it dipped) in 2015
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4️⃣ Swinney presided over a widening of the attainment gap between richest and poorest

2019 witnessed a widening of the attainment gap between richest and poorest since the SNP’s ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ was introduced
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Swinney’s attainment gap shame:

➡️ 2019-2020 saw proportion of pupils passing three or more Highers was 43%, lower than any year from 2015 on
➡️ Audit Scotland found Scottish children from poor backgrounds remain significantly less likely than English kids to go to uni
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5️⃣ He has made extremely dodgy claims on Twitter about schools closing the attainment gap
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But Swinney is playing fast & loose with the truth when he tweets PISA ‘corroborates what we see elsewhere — improving schools and a closing of the attainment gap’.

How is he lying? Let’s look more closely at the Scottish Index for Multiple Deprivation...
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SNP in 2019 claimed highest ever % school leavers (26%) from most-deprived quintile of areas were going on to university. BUT the Spectator found the SNP’s own research indicates “that as many as 90% of those on low incomes actually live outside the ‘most deprived’ areas”
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Conclusion

John Swinney has presided over an era of Scottish education decline.

He has avoided tough decisions, abandoned reforms that worked in England. He bought teachers off instead of listening & hid falling outcomes by ending international assessments participation
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Sources:

▪️SNP abandons flagship education bill
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

▪️ Attainment gap between rich and poor 'has widened in Scotland's schools under new curriculum'
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

▪️Swinney axes global school assessments
thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-…
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Sources (continued)

▪️Scottish Government 'falls short' on pledge to close education poverty gap
itv.com/news/border/20…

▪️How the SNP wrecked Scottish education
spectator.co.uk/article/how-th…
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