The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday October 26 2023 #Schools
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Built-in
00:09 for Thursday.
00:10 I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman
00:13 joined today by our education correspondent, Callum Ross,
00:15 to take a look at what's making the headlines.
00:18 Hi, Callum.
00:19 - Morning, Alan.
00:21 - Let's have a look at the front page first off.
00:23 And there's the reason Callum's here.
00:26 We splashed today on his story as a really fascinating story
00:30 and looking at rates of pupil absence across Scotland.
00:35 So it's been an extensive study done, published today.
00:40 And the summary is that attendance rates
00:44 haven't recovered since the pandemic
00:47 and it's a big problem.
00:50 We pitched with Princess Royal and a Visit to Scotland
00:52 on the front page there.
00:54 And a really interesting feature, it's plugged at the top,
00:57 you might be able to see,
00:58 that's the National Library of Scotland
01:01 who are asking for volunteers to help them sift
01:04 through their vast archives.
01:07 We clearly have all the football action from last night,
01:12 Celtic drew with Athletico Madrid,
01:14 and a look ahead to Rangers and Aberdeen in Europe tonight.
01:19 But Callum, keen to know more about your story
01:25 today and perhaps firstly, just bring us up to date
01:28 with what the study has found.
01:30 - Yeah, of course, Alan.
01:32 I mean, there's been a lot of focus in Scotland,
01:34 hasn't there, rightly so, on kind of school violence
01:38 and classroom kind of bad behaviour
01:41 and the idea that that's kind of increased
01:44 in the wake of the pandemic.
01:46 But the other kind of key issue that's been emerging
01:49 has the idea that attendance rates
01:52 haven't really covered from the disruption caused
01:56 during the extensive lockdowns in 2020 and '21.
02:01 Now, with both issues, there's been a common problem
02:05 in that there's not been a great deal of data.
02:09 I mean, I looked yesterday to find figures for Scotland
02:12 and the last kind of official statistics on attendance
02:15 were published about a year and a half ago for 2020, '21.
02:19 And even then, there's not much detail.
02:23 So what the Commission on School Reform has done,
02:26 this is a kind of group of experts set up
02:28 by the Reform Scotland think tank.
02:30 They put FOIs into freedom of information requests
02:33 and to all the local authorities to get the local figures
02:37 and then kind of compile the data.
02:39 And what they found is pretty shocking, really.
02:44 I think about a third of pupils now have an attendance rate
02:48 below 90% and that's really for the last two years.
02:52 The figures are pretty similar.
02:54 Now, that's about 50% higher than was the case
02:58 before the pandemic when you were looking at kind of 21, 22%.
03:03 And I think that works out as a kind of day off
03:07 on average per fortnight.
03:10 And if you look at kind of older pupils in S4, S5 and S6,
03:14 it's up to kind of 40% taking an average of a day off
03:19 every fortnight and attendance rate below 90%.
03:25 If you look at the kids who are off 80%,
03:30 but have an attendance rate below 80%,
03:33 that's 12% of pupils now up from 7%.
03:38 So, I mean, there does seem to be an issue there.
03:42 And I think what's interesting as well
03:43 is this year that's just finished, 2022, 23,
03:48 there hasn't been much improvement
03:49 from the previous year, 21, 22.
03:53 So, it doesn't seem to be getting better.
03:56 - No, and obviously there's real disparities
04:01 between council areas that I think you highlight today.
04:05 And Dundee's particularly bad, is that right?
04:08 - Yeah, Dundee, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire,
04:11 North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire,
04:14 I think were the ones that kind of stood out.
04:17 And on the other side that you had kind of,
04:19 I think East Dunbartonshire and Highland
04:22 were among the ones that were a bit better.
04:27 Now, the Scottish government's kind of admitted
04:31 that there are kind of local variances
04:35 and variances in year groups,
04:37 although it kind of says that it looks like
04:42 the most latest figures show that attendance rates
04:44 are pretty similar to the averages seen in previous years.
04:48 But it's certainly something that needs looked into
04:51 in a bit more detail, I think.
04:53 - Yeah, and there is gonna be more discussion
04:56 around this today.
04:58 - Yeah, there's a panel discussion involving
05:00 this commission on school reform
05:02 about their report this afternoon.
05:04 And interestingly, it features Kate Forbes,
05:07 former finance secretary.
05:08 So it'll be interesting to find out
05:10 what she thinks of that work
05:12 and what she thinks needs to be done.
05:16 - Yeah, thanks very much, Calum, really interesting.
05:18 So today you can read that at scotsman.com now,
05:22 and it's obviously in today's paper as well.
05:26 If you are on the website throughout the day,
05:27 please do subscribe if you can,
05:30 then you will not miss a thing.
05:32 And if you're out and about today,
05:34 do also pick up a copy of the paper
05:36 from me and from Calum, it's by far.
05:38 (upbeat music)
05:42 (upbeat music)