The Education Minister Fiona Hyslop is in deep doo-dung (continuing) about the failure of the SNP's promise to have class sizes of 18 in all P1 - P3 classrooms. This failure is related to the SNP's inablity to finance new schools. After promising to match Labour's school building programme "brick for brick", using the "Scottish Futures Trust" as the financing mechanism, it turns out that the "Scottish Futures Trust" has no future: it doesn't exist and it never existed. So the prospect of using the "Scottish Futures Trust" to find the money to build enough schools to accommodate class sizes of 18 was never feasible, and you can't hope to reduce class sizes in all schools without an extensive programme of building new schools.
To be fair to Fiona, the "Scottish Futures Trust" is John Swinney's failure, but it is of no help to the Education Minister that her two key policies are sunk without trace half way through the Parliament. No new schools and no class-size-18. The failures in Education Policy are the failures of the Education Minister.
If it was any other party Fiona would be out on her ear by now (you can just hear the Nationalists screams if a Labour Minister ever failed to this shocking extent), but the SNP seems remarkably tolerant of those who fail to deliver for Scottsh children.
Still and all, time to do the honourable thing Fiona. Resignation time, don'tya' think?
Showing posts with label Fional Hyslop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fional Hyslop. Show all posts
Monday, 29 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
The SNP Matches Labour's School Building Programme Brick for Brick...Only Joking.
Today the Education Minister Fional Hyslop finally, at last, announced that the SNP is ready to build some schools in Scotland. She said the move would provide 55 new schools and see 35,000 pupils taught in modern buildings, with the first bricks laid in 2010.
The mystery is, having promised to match Labour's school building programme "brick for brick", why wait two years and two months to announce your programme? What has Fiona Hyslop been up to for the past two years?
The Minister said that building these schools would begin in 2010. But why could this announcement not have have been made two years ago? If it had, we might actually be building some schools now. Who knows, some of them might even be completed and have pupils in them by now.
Fiona Hyslop, Alex Salmond and, for all I know, other SNP ministers have been traversing the country for the last two years opening schools commissioned and built under the Labour/Lib Dem administration. In the meantime they have not commissioned, never mind built, one new school themselves.
The SNP Minister said that the schools would be occupied 12-18 months after start of build. So we have the bizarre prospect of an election in May 2011 with perhaps not one new school completed under a four year administration. If that's not a scandal, nothing is.
The mystery is, having promised to match Labour's school building programme "brick for brick", why wait two years and two months to announce your programme? What has Fiona Hyslop been up to for the past two years?
The Minister said that building these schools would begin in 2010. But why could this announcement not have have been made two years ago? If it had, we might actually be building some schools now. Who knows, some of them might even be completed and have pupils in them by now.
Fiona Hyslop, Alex Salmond and, for all I know, other SNP ministers have been traversing the country for the last two years opening schools commissioned and built under the Labour/Lib Dem administration. In the meantime they have not commissioned, never mind built, one new school themselves.
The SNP Minister said that the schools would be occupied 12-18 months after start of build. So we have the bizarre prospect of an election in May 2011 with perhaps not one new school completed under a four year administration. If that's not a scandal, nothing is.
Friday, 27 March 2009
What does "brick for brick" actually mean?
Yesterday at FMQ's Iain Gray asked Alex Salmond to take responsibility for the lack of delivery by Education Minister Fiona Hyslop.
The latest admission by Hyslop, that there are 1000 fewer teachers in Scotland's schools than a year ago is bad enough.
But the SNP has already abandoned it promise of reducing class sizes in P1-P3 to 18.
As for the SNP's promise to match Labour's school building programme "brick-for-brick": it is a disgrace and a disaster. Not one new school has been commissioned since the SNP came to power.
Meanwhile Fiona Hyslop and Alex Salmond travel the country opening the latest of the almost 200 schools that Labour commissioned and built, and shamelessly basking in the reflected glory of the achievements of others.
This is more than just another party-political bunfight. The education of our children is a key to our future prosperity. The provision of new and efficient buildings in which teachers can teach and children can learn is vital to this process. The non-delivery of new schools is a crime against a whole generation of youngsters, and the Scottish Nationalists should be ashamed of their failure to deliver such a basic requirement of any competent administration.
Two weeks ago, three junior ministers were sacked. I don't know how competent or otherwise they were, but it seems to me that Ms Hyslop's incompetence is so great, and she is so close to the First Minister, that it gives her a paradoxical protection from the the fate which she surely deserves.
The latest admission by Hyslop, that there are 1000 fewer teachers in Scotland's schools than a year ago is bad enough.
But the SNP has already abandoned it promise of reducing class sizes in P1-P3 to 18.
As for the SNP's promise to match Labour's school building programme "brick-for-brick": it is a disgrace and a disaster. Not one new school has been commissioned since the SNP came to power.
Meanwhile Fiona Hyslop and Alex Salmond travel the country opening the latest of the almost 200 schools that Labour commissioned and built, and shamelessly basking in the reflected glory of the achievements of others.
This is more than just another party-political bunfight. The education of our children is a key to our future prosperity. The provision of new and efficient buildings in which teachers can teach and children can learn is vital to this process. The non-delivery of new schools is a crime against a whole generation of youngsters, and the Scottish Nationalists should be ashamed of their failure to deliver such a basic requirement of any competent administration.
Two weeks ago, three junior ministers were sacked. I don't know how competent or otherwise they were, but it seems to me that Ms Hyslop's incompetence is so great, and she is so close to the First Minister, that it gives her a paradoxical protection from the the fate which she surely deserves.
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