School Education is a major issue for all families.
And it’s been one of the most prominent issues on which the SNP have broken
promises they made in order to win votes.
They promised then to reduce all class sizes in Primary 1-3 classes to 18 or
less by 2011… but today over 70 per cent of pupils in these classes in Dundee
are still above that level, many substantially so.
They promised to maintain teacher numbers.. but in the past two years alone
almost 1 secondary teacher in 10 in Dundee has gone.
They promised to match Labour’s enviable school-building programme "brick for
brick"… but work on the refurbishment of Harris Academy won’t begin till the
year AFTER the 2011 election.
The vast majority of the new schools that have been completed since the SNP
came to power 4 years ago are those that the previous Labour-led Administration
commissioned and put in place their funding and contracts. - Not the SNP.
Over 3,000 teaching posts have gone under the SNP, and newly-qualified
teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to find work .. but the previous
UK Labour Government gave the SNP Government in Holyrood more money to run
Scotland than any previous Scottish Government has ever had.
The SNP began cutting education in Scotland before the Tory-led
Government began their cuts in spending.
And Dundee’s SNP Education Convener believes that the £4 million cut in
education spending in Dundee that the SNP have made will lead to a better
service.
Below is the four year story of that emphatic failure of the SNP in School
Education as told through the work of Marlyn Glen, when she was an MSP, and Councillor Laurie Bidwell
, Labour’s spokesperson on education on Dundee City Council up to the end of
financial year 2010-11.
The links to articles below relate to the period when Marlyn Glen was an MSP
in the period up to March 2011. She is no longer an MSP
SNP Councillors vote down £379,000 for Dundee Schools they had
cut by £4.1 million 14/02/2011
