Watch out as they try again to blame the SNP but remember NO liberal democracy ANYWHERE has EVER closed the school attainment gap

No liberal democracy ANYWHERE has EVER closed the school attainment gap yet in Scotland it’s a stick to beat the SNP with

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9 thoughts on “Watch out as they try again to blame the SNP but remember NO liberal democracy ANYWHERE has EVER closed the school attainment gap”

      1. A neo liberal oligarchy with sham elections and political kabuki theatre IMO – with some honourable exceptions.

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  2. Don’t take away any potential ‘equalisers’ that might help bridge the gap e.g. https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2026/07/02/dare-to-be-different-on-smart-phones-scotland-since-they-were-first-introduced-teenage-sex-pregnancy-rates-crime-violence-alcohol-and-drugs-all-down/. The current political crackdown on teenagers across multiple domains and not just social media/IT, will turn out to be a monumental disaster in terms of teenage behaviour, future society (open source mobile technology is one of the few potential ‘equalisers’ across wealth divides) and the ever-increasing appalling behaviour of already rampant and legally permissioned ‘big tech’ and social media companies. AI companies destroying books, including original sources, is just the latest obscenity https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/30/why-ai-companies-are-destroying-millions-of-old-books/

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  3. A quarter of a century ago I was trying to create egalitarian records systems that empowered ordinary people, not dissimilar to those now used by Estonia and Flanders (the antithesis of what Scotland is doing). I came across a paper that vividly brought to mind my state primary school in a not so salubrious area where the forward-thinking headmaster picked pupils out and assigned individual tasks according to any perceived talent. Mine was ‘Think-a-Dot’ (see Wikipedia) and even though a short time later Neil Armstrong switched off the Eagle’s computer to land manually on the moon, my world had changed. Several of my contemporaries crossed the ‘attainment gap’. So it’s not just teenagers who need more open source tech access and Socratic teaching. I only realised in the past few weeks that the author of the paper that gave me those pleasant flashbacks back in the day was none other than Prof R (🤞). Thank you, John.

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      1. What happened was that I was trying to orientate my thinking to a ‘talking-up’ viewpoint – I tend to be too negative – and so looked up your publications (sorry) for a brief look only to realise I had read one of them long ago, on ‘ICT’ not having the impact it should have had in primary schools over preceding years. I was involved in setting up a university informatics course at the time so had searched for papers on teaching IT and yours was picked up in the trawl. And yet in the 60s in a relatively ‘tough’ primary school the head was singling us out for various projects, in my case ‘Think-a-Dot’, recently making a 3D print comeback (Wikipedia shows cross section) https://boingboing.net/2018/10/30/how-to-3d-print-the-think-a-do.html Same head had us watching Apollo moon missions live on TV instead of classes (think it was an Apollo 12 moonwalk in my case). After that in Secondary (early 70s) it was ‘Modern Mathematics for Schools’ books which had a chapter on BASIC programming at the back…it wasn’t taught at school but I did it anyway and ran the programs on punched cards years later when I first got my hands on a real computer at a Strathclyde Uni open day. Memories… 😊 

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  4. The Scottish government has at least halved the attainment gap.

    UCAS carried out an analysis in 2018 of University applications from 2006 – 2018 for all 4 parts of the UK. For Scotland in 2006 when Lab/LibDems were in power in Holyrood the ratio of university applications from the most advantaged group to the least advantaged group was 4.5 to 1. The applications from the least advantaged group amounted to less than 10%.

    By 2018 the ratio of University applications from the mostcadvantaged to least advantaged had closed to 2.6 to 1. As UCAS pointed out this was due to an INCREASE in applications from the least advantaged group. Their share of applications had risen from less than 10% in 2006 to 18% in 2018.

    There was a further narrowing of the gap in 2019 then along came Covid.

    It should be noted as UCAS noted that fully one third of University applications in Scotland do not go via UCAS so the gap may have been that bit narrower.

    S most advantaged to least advantaged

    2006 4.5 to 1

    2018 2.6 to 1

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  5. Scottish Gov student loans are not means tested (Labour), so more students from households of average earning can go to university. Lower average income households get grants+loans. Means more students from lower income households can go to uni.

    In the bad old days 10% went to uni. Had access to professional jobs. Now over 50% in Scotland go to university. Highest no in the world. Highest number of unis 15 – pop 5.4million. Highest number in the world. Plus colleges and apprenticeships. Scotland highest number in the world. Best education system. Next Canada 56%.

    Life long learning. More lower income household members go back to studying. Lower attainment gap. 30% from school. 25% mature students. Not included in statistics. 7% EU. Foreign students paying the full cost. Helping attainment gap closing in the rest of the world. US 40% of higher degrees.

    Scotland the land of invention and discovery (Chinese premier). TV, radio – telecommunication. – internet. Scottish invention changed and shaped the world because of the education system. First country to have tertiary education. Up to 14 years. Church education. Tithe paid to support education. Welfare.

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