Thanks to Brenda Robb for alerting me to this.
From BBC UK today:
The pass rate for GCSE maths resits in England has fallen, after more students had to take their exams again.
November’s exam results show 22.9% of maths entries were marked at a grade 4, a standard pass, or above, down from 24.9% in 2022 and 26.9% in 2019.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67937273
There are some things missing in the above report.
First there’s no mention of the attainment gaps between the results for the most and least disadvantaged, an obsession with opposition politicians in Scotland because cynically they can use them to criticise the SNP as if they give a flying f*** about anybody else’s children.
Second, there are no opposition politicians platformed because only one BBC nation politicises public services. This one, in a report of only 800 words in total, these 122, from BBC Scotland :
Pass rate falls as Scottish pupils get exam results
The Scottish Conservatives said the attainment gap between pupils from the most and least deprived parts of the country had increased.
It said the figure for National 5 passes now stood at 15.6% – the widest gap since 2019 – and that the gap for Higher passes had widened for the third year in a row.
Scottish Conservatives MSP Liam Kerr said this should be “a source of shame” for ministers.
“Pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have been let down year after year by the SNP,” he said.
Scottish Labour education spokesperson Pam Duncan-Glancy also accused the Scottish government of failing to close the attainment gap.
“The young people of Scotland deserve better than SNP failure,” she added.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66429533
Not reporting, campaigning.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Tory maths:-
1+1= 9. An extra 7 being “donated” by private subscribers (soon to be Lords, Dames and board members of the BBC).
Labour maths :-
1+1 = 1. This as Shir Keir claims there is no money for investments other than Trident.
Dumb maths :-
1+1= anything you want if it gets media exposure.
Dance with a sheep, or naked under the stars????
ANYTHING!
gavinochiltree
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#Shush for the union
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Mark Openshaw had a letter in the Herald to the effect that Scotland should not be independent as serious issues were about: one of which was WAR.
I replied but did not get published. Not unusual in these grim days.
It seems that tonight the “English” Cabinet is meeting to discuss going to war against the Houthi.
Will the Scottish or Welsh government be consulted?
As I stated in my unpublished reply to Mark Openshaw, going to WAR without a say, is a serious issue, and is actually a driver for self-governance, not a deterrent.to it.
gavinochiltree
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Parliament wasn’t even consulted. They have been presented with a fait accompli.
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I have mixed feelings about the way Scottish issues are reported and politicised so bear with me while I try to sort out my thoughts
I have listened to many radio discussions re the post office scandal and one of the issues that keeps cropping up is the failure of politicians and the press to challenge political inaction. In the latest talkmedia podcast Stuart Cosgrove and Eamonn Holmes discussed the phrase “holding politicians feet to the fire” disliking the easy use of the words, following up with a debate on the clickbait culture in the media rather than any serious investigative work to bring light to a subject
No-one could argue that the SNP govt is not challenged or held to account and. as shown in this BBC education piece, it can seem very unfair when no other major party seems to get similar and sustained scrutiny. But it maybe could be argued that it actually works in our favour with challenge and opposing views out in the open for all to see and politicians well aware that this will be the case. Surely part of the problem with the UK tories is or has been a distinct lack of challenge and robust scrutiny?
I think though the downside is when the scrutiny is only motivated by the desire to score political points and do damage to other parties. Call me naive – I do know politics is a brutal arena – but I feel this point scoring approach creates more heat than light and it appears (eg in the post office affair) to be damaging the very cause everyone wants to see resolved. Andrew Tickell is right to say the Scottish Crown Office has questions to answer but when Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar demanded this at FMQ yesterday they weakened their case by trying to pin the problem on the SNP.
I’ve also just listened to Radio Scotland’s interview with Humza Yousaf. Yes we want politicians held to account and to be challenged by the press but when the interviewer is seemingly only trying to catch someone out and uses interruption aggressively to throw the interviewee off kilter we are forced into partisan positions rather than listening to the arguments. Some of the best interviews I have listened to lately are by the late night LBC presenters on a range of topics, maybe the timing dives them more opportunities to listen and converse rather than a rapid fire, headline grabbing approach?
I really hope that in this election year we (TUS followers) can use this space to discuss and debate with John and each other to create light rather than heat.
Brobb
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Yes, proposals and actions by politicians should be examined – I prefer this word to ‘challenged’ which has overtones of adversarialism which leads to points-scoring and ‘winning’ the argument, not on the actual issue but on ‘landing a blow’. It is made ‘personal’
In theory this ought to test whether the politician has examined all the relevant options and produced a proposal which is likely to address the particular issue with a fair degree of success. In addition, it should inform the general public that constructive action is being taken. However, this is rarely what the media do. They start of with the premise that ANY proposal is, ipso facto, BAD and must be shown to be so and the proposer to be a charlatan and incompetent.
But, in Scotland comment and criticism by opposition politicians is not challenged or subjected to a similar degree of rigorous scrutiny. Indeed, the ‘interviewer’ often acts as a ‘feed’ for the politician. This was evidenced, for example, by the fact that when she was leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson was seldom, if ever, asked challenging questions.
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