Sturgeon: I did not appreciate factors behind attainment gap

The Herald Scotland

3 hours ago

She said that when she promised to eradicate the gap between the educational performance of pupils from rich and poor areas, she 'probably [did not] appreciate' the full extent of the factors that influence it.
In a speech in 2015, Ms Sturgeon said: 'My aim, to put it bluntly, is to close the attainment gap completely.
"It will not be done overnight, I accept that. But it must be done.
"After all, its existence is more than just an economic and social challenge for us all. It is a moral challenge. Indeed, I would argue that it goes to the very heart of who we are and how we see ourselves as a nation.'
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In their 2016 manifesto, the SNP said 'closing the gap in attainment between young people from our most and least deprived communities will be the defining mission of the SNP in the next parliament.'
Ms Sturgeon then said her government would push to substantially reduce the attainment gap by 2026, writing in that year's Programme for Government document that elimination of the gap was 'a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success'.
However, exams results last week revealed that despite some progress, the rate of the attainment gap remains substantial.
The National 5 rate dropped from 17.2% to 16.6% while Higher saw a small dip from 17.2% to 17.1% and Advanced Higher from 15.5% to 12.8%.
The gap in the number of pupils achieving an A also reduced slightly at all levels, but remained substantially higher than the A-C rate.
In National 5, the rate fell from 27.6% to 27.5%, 22.1% to 22% in Higher and 18.7% to 18.3% in Advanced Higher.
Asked about the failure to eliminate the gap during the book festival event, Ms Sturgeon said: 'This is possibly one of my biggest regrets. At the time, I made the promise of probably not appreciating as much as I quickly came to do the factors that would influence that.
'And that was not just about issues around the curriculum in schools, but what is the driving cause of the poverty related attainment gap in our schools? It's poverty, it's the conditions children grow up in, outside school."
"So some of the things that I am proudest of are the Scottish Child Payment, the doubling or early years education, the baby box.
"These are things that are lifting children out of poverty, and I believe in time will make a difference to the Scottish Government."
Ms Sturgeon added: 'I think Scottish education is good. I don't believe it is in the terrible state that many say. I believe we saw in the exams results last week that the attainment gap is starting to close.
'I'm not really sitting here saying I don't regret that it didn't go further.'
She added: 'On this particular issue, and again, I'm being frank about it, it was probably a lack of appreciation of what you had."
Ms Sturgeon said initiatives and putting money into education was not enough.
"All of that is right, but unless you're changing the conditions kids are growing up in, then you're not going to have the impact. And that's what I learned along the way."