Tory leader accused of demonising young people with push for school exclusions
Scotland's First Minister has accused the leader of the Tories of a 'demonisation of young people' after he pushed for more exclusions to tackle disruption in schools.
The Government this week released long-awaited guidance which attempts to deal with the issue, which has been worsening since the pandemic, telling teachers excluding pupils should be a 'last resort'.
Speaking at First Minister's Questions, Conservative leader Russell Findlay branded the 49-page document 'nonsense' as he urged John Swinney to 'end the barrage of guidance and please empower teachers to take a stricter approach'.
But Mr Swinney pointed to a summit he recently hosted in an attempt to limit school violence, where he said none of the attendees pushed for greater exclusions.
'A whole variety of different people involved, in violence reduction… all those organisations who are doing really good work to avoid violence in our society and to de-escalate, exactly what I'm talking about,' he said.
'Not one of them said to me that I should increase the level of exclusion from schools.
'So what we are getting from Russell Findlay today is a demonisation of young people and a failure to address the mechanisms and the interventions required to solve a difficult issue in our society.
'It is simplistic nonsense, and Parliament should ignore it.'
Earlier in the session, Mr Findlay attacked the guidance, saying: 'Really, it's exactly what you might expect from this ineffective Government.
'Forty-nine pages of tedious, hand-wringing nonsense, complicated and confusing. When John Swinney was education secretary, teachers said he issued too much guidance, which made their jobs even harder.'
Mr Findlay mocked some of the suggested measures in the guidance, including giving 'violent pupils laminated bullet points, telling them to think about their behaviour', and tackling dangerous behaviour by having 'a conversation to jointly problem solve with the child'.
Responding, the First Minister said: 'I don't think for a moment that Mr Findlay's presentation of the guidance is in any way, shape or form representative of what is actually there.
'What the guidance is designed to do is to de-escalate situations in our schools to ensure that young people can participate in their education.
'Because if young people are unable to participate in their education, they are unlikely to go into good outcomes in our society, and we will simply repeat the difficulties that we have seen for many years of young people who do not go on to positive destinations.'
The First Minister also told MSPs that, if excluded, pupils are no longer in the 'safe environment of school', adding: 'They are therefore likely to be out on the streets and therefore potentially able to become involved in some of the criminal activity that Mr Findlay himself has put to me with the last fortnight at First Minister's Questions as being a risk to which young people are exposed.'
Mr Findlay – a former crime journalist – has repeatedly raised the issue of organised crime, particularly around the ongoing feud which has sparked violence across Scotland's central belt.
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