Tag: education

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Academic cowardice and BBC bias denial at the highest level in the Yes campaign in the run up to the 2014 Scottish Independence public debate

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What I didn’t notice at first, I didn’t notice because the BBC had complained about me and I noticed that negative attention, I didn’t notice that none of my peer group were supporting me. None of them, whether they agreed with my research or not, they should have supported my freedom to write this and not to be bullied by the BBC. No single professor of media, politics, or economics or any relevant discipline. Not one broke ranks to say that they disagreed with the BBC. Is this because these people are within a sort of career bubble, and which … Continue reading Academic cowardice and BBC bias denial at the highest level in the Yes campaign in the run up to the 2014 Scottish Independence public debate

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Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair From Comparing inequality and outcomes across post-16 education in the UK, published in the last few days: Since the formal introduction of devolution in the late 1990s, post-16 education and training (E&T)has looked increasingly different across the four nations of the UK, particularly as policyapproaches have diverged. With such differences in post-16 E&T across the UK, there are clearopportunities … Continue reading Major study by respected Nuffield Foundation finds higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland

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Never done a real job Lib Dem thinks he can criticise SNP achievements in Education

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair Thanks to rtpscott for alerting me to this. Willie Rennie is in the P&J today to claim ‘SNP’s attainment gap promise lying in ruins’. This allows me to repeat a response which I know only a few hundred of the thousands following TuS across social media have actually looked at. I include my experience above merely to suggest I … Continue reading Never done a real job Lib Dem thinks he can criticise SNP achievements in Education

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Is there a hidden flood of English students moving to Scotland to avoid tuition fee debt of now £53 000?

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, former Head of Department and Associate Dean, UWS While there is only, as yet, anecdotal evidence of people moving from England to Scotland with the specific intention of applying to attend Higher Education tuition fee-free, there are two reasons to suspect the trend may be underway in some measure. First, we see an increasing number of media articles advising how it can be done and it is definitely more than possible given the autonomy of each HE institution to decide … Continue reading Is there a hidden flood of English students moving to Scotland to avoid tuition fee debt of now £53 000?

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Neither ‘Nic’ nor the SNP have ‘failed poor kids’ as attainment among them doubles

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair I don’t know what the former first minister has said about this exactly but the media exploitation of it stinks. I’m in danger, not for the first time, of being called a ‘heid-the-ba‘ after posting the details of my long experience in education above. You should just be relieved, I didn’t add my 6 postgraduate qualies! I worked hard … Continue reading Neither ‘Nic’ nor the SNP have ‘failed poor kids’ as attainment among them doubles

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Improvement in attainment WITHIN the disadvantaged group matters and the SNP have doubled it in only 10 years but narrowing the ‘gap’ BETWEEN groups is both far less important and largely beyond all of us

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Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair The ‘Scottish’ media are frothing today about the SNP failing to narrow the attainment gap between those students from the most and the least deprived areas. In my 50 years researching and thinking, talking with colleagues across school and higher education, I’ve never met anyone who thinks we should be worrying about or trying to do anything about narrowing the class-based gap. Only in Albania and Maoist China were the gaps … Continue reading Improvement in attainment WITHIN the disadvantaged group matters and the SNP have doubled it in only 10 years but narrowing the ‘gap’ BETWEEN groups is both far less important and largely beyond all of us

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As BBC Scotland anticipate a widening attainment gap today, how the SNP HAS CLOSED the attainment gap within Scottish schools and WIDENED it with England

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Professor John Robertson OBA This morning BBC UK’s Scotland Correspondent repeated the old ‘concerns about the Scottish Government’s failure to close the attainment gap.‘ It’s a lie. From the Scottish Government’s Literacy and numeracy standards reach record high report in December 2024: The proportion of pupils achieving the expected level in literacy and numeracy across primary and secondary schools has reached a new high, officials figures show. For numeracy, a record 80.3% of pupils across P1, P4 and P7 reached expected levels, while S3 also reached a new high of 90.3%. For literacy, achievement is also now at a record high … Continue reading As BBC Scotland anticipate a widening attainment gap today, how the SNP HAS CLOSED the attainment gap within Scottish schools and WIDENED it with England

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‘I’d rather be a teacher in Scotland than England’ – research review confirms the sense in this

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By JB The headline above is from Teachers Education Supplement magazine 2019 in an article about a teacher from England who came to work in Scotland. “Teachers have a far better time of it north of the border, says this educator who has experienced school life in both countries”  He goes on to say that “On balance, I think teaching in the Scottish state- education system is better than in the English one. It seems foolish now that I never considered there would be differences; it’s just that my English-centric view had me assume that the two systems would be identical. Believe me, … Continue reading ‘I’d rather be a teacher in Scotland than England’ – research review confirms the sense in this

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Shock as some locals tell CNN they see fewer needles and drug paraphernalia on ground around ‘controversial’ SNP safe drug injection centre in Glasgow which has now saved lives after 2 500 supervised injections in only 6 months

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Professor John Robertson OBA From US-based international news agency CNN today, the above and: “We’ve had almost 2,500 injections inside the facility,” Dr. Saket Priyadarshi, the clinical lead of the Thistle, told a CNN team who visited the facility in early June. “That’s 2,500 less injections in the community, in parks, alleyways, car parks.” The Scottish government told CNN that the service has already delivered results in terms of public health. “Through the ability of staff to respond quickly in the event of an overdose, the Thistle service has already saved lives,” Scottish health secretary Neil Gray said. The service, … Continue reading Shock as some locals tell CNN they see fewer needles and drug paraphernalia on ground around ‘controversial’ SNP safe drug injection centre in Glasgow which has now saved lives after 2 500 supervised injections in only 6 months

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You’ll think I must be making this stuff up but English schools permanently excluded ONE THOUSAND times as many children, per head, as in Scotland but we’ll pay some of the price for that as they’re used as drug mules by the English County lines drug gangs plaguing Scotland

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Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie once again for alerting me to this: In the Guardian today, the above and: More than 10,000 children were permanently excluded from England’s state schools last year, alongside record numbers of suspensions involving pupils aged six or younger or with special needs, as teachers struggled to cope with worsening behaviour. The figures for the 2023-24 academic year revealed that the number of permanent exclusions leapt up by 16% compared with the year before, while the total number of suspension days rose by 21% to 955,000. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/10/rise-in-school-exclusions-in-england-including-among-children-under-six There were 11 676 temporary and 1 permanent exclusion from Scotland’s … Continue reading You’ll think I must be making this stuff up but English schools permanently excluded ONE THOUSAND times as many children, per head, as in Scotland but we’ll pay some of the price for that as they’re used as drug mules by the English County lines drug gangs plaguing Scotland