Sturgeon’s pledge on attainment gap has been ‘irrevocably broken’, ministers told

The Scottish Government has “irrevocably broken” a flagship commitment from former first minister Nicola Sturgeon to tackle the attainment gap – with Liberal Democrats claiming on current progress it would take 133 years to close gap in achievement for numeracy at primary school.

Ministers came under fire as new figures on Scotland’s schools were published – setting out details of achievement in literacy and numeracy at key stages, as well as attendance levels and teacher numbers.

This showed the attainment gap, which measures the difference in educational achievement between youngsters from the most and least deprived areas, had fallen to its lowest level on record.

But, despite this, Scottish Conservative education spokesperson Miles Briggs insisted there is still a “chasm between the most and least disadvantaged kids when it comes to basic literacy and numeracy”.

Government figures showed that for primary pupils, who are assessed in P1, P4 and P7, 74.5% achieved the level expected under the Curriculum for Excellence in literacy in 2024-25 – with this the highest on record.

Meanwhile, for numeracy, 80.3% of primary pupils achieved the expected levels in numeracy – with this the same as the best ever result, achieved in 2023-24.

In secondary schools, almost nine out of 10 S3 students (89.8%) achieved their expected level for literacy, with 90.9% at this standard for numeracy – with both of these results higher than in previous years.

According to the data, the attainment gap in primary schools narrowed to the lowest recorded level for both literacy and numeracy.

This meant for literacy there was a gap of 19.4 percentage points between the performance of youngsters in the most and least deprived areas, and a gap of 16.6% in numeracy.

For S3 students, the gaps between the most and least deprived were the lowest on record – with a difference of 10.8 percentage points on literacy and 11.6 percentage points on numeracy.

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth welcomed the results, saying they showed “clear progress is being made”.

She said: “Attainment levels are at record highs in literacy and numeracy following Scottish Government investment of £1.75 billion in the Scottish Attainment Challenge over the past decade – aimed at improving outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty.”

Ms Gilruth added: “This evidence further underlines the strong recovery we are seeing in schools following the pandemic, after this year’s national exam results showed the poverty-related attainment gap narrowing at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher levels.

“It is testament to the hard work of pupils, teachers and staff in schools and I am committed to working with them to deliver further improvements.”

However, Liberal Democrats said based on current progress it would take 133 years to close the attainment gap in numeracy at primary school, and 57 years to close the gap in performance on literacy in primaries.

Closing the gap on literacy in S3 pupils would take 31 years, the party calculated, with 28 years needed to close the gap at this level on numeracy.

With former first minister Nicola Sturgeon having previously pledged to close the gap in performance by 2026, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie said: “We’re weeks away from Nicola Sturgeon’s deadline for closing the attainment gap, but the SNP are still a lifetime away from making it happen.”

He added: “The SNP’s promise to a whole generation of pupils from deprived backgrounds is irrevocably broken.”

Labour education spokesperson Paul O’Kane said: “The SNP once pledged to eradicate the attainment gap, but now it is congratulating itself for incremental progress.”

He added: “Any improvement in our education system is welcome but the truth is, after nearly two decades of SNP government, this is too little too late.”

Mr Briggs was also critical of the SNP’s “failure on their promise to eradicate the attainment gap”.

The Tory MSP said: “More than a decade on from Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship pledge, there remains a chasm between the most and least disadvantaged kids when it comes to basic literacy and numeracy.”

Separate figures, meanwhile, showed what Ms Gilruth described as a “noticeable reduction” in pupils who were “persistently absent” in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government statistics revealed 28.5% of youngsters missed at least 10% of the school year, and were not in classes for at least 19 days.

While just over a fifth (21.1%) of primary school pupils were in this category, this rose to nearly two fifths (37.4%) of high school students.

The persistent absence rate for 2024-25, however, was down from 31.4% in 2023-24 – although the report noted the “rate of persistent absence remains substantially higher than in the period from 2010-11 to 2020-21”.

Pupils’ overall absence rate decreased in 2024-25, falling from 9.7% in the previous year to 9% – although this was still “higher than the pre-Covid period” when the absence rate was said to be “relatively stable” at about 7%.

Government figures also showed a rise in the number of teachers to 53,475 in 2025 – with this total up by 63 from the previous year.

This came at the same time as the number of pupils in Scotland’s schools fell by 6,505 over the year, to stand at 695,923 in 2025.

This decrease in student numbers, together with the rise in teaching staff, meant the pupil teacher ratio fell from 13.3 to 13.2 – meaning that there were fewer pupils per teacher in 2025 compared to the previous year.

Ms Gilruth said it was “hugely encouraging to see the improvement in attendance and a fall in absences, including a noticeable reduction in persistent absence levels, after the work being done to address this since the pandemic”.