We should not settle for education returning to pre-Covid standards, MSPs told

The recovery of Scotland’s education system from the pandemic should aim to improve on pre-Covid levels, MSPs have heard.

Academics, politicians and unions have been warning since the pandemic forced schools to close that the impact on young people’s wellbeing and attainment could be severe.

Andrea Bradley, assistant secretary of the education trade union the EIS, told the Education, Children and Young People Committee at Holyrood on Wednesday that it would take “creativity, collaboration and additional resource” to recover from the pandemic.

But she also said the education system was still feeling the fallout of budget cuts in the decade before the pandemic struck.

“We hadn’t even recovered from the decade-long period of austerity, then the pandemic came along and dealt more than a few further hefty blows,” she said.

“To fail to understand that and to fail to understand that we need to not only get back to where we were pre-pandemic, we need to do better than get back to where we were pre-pandemic, we have to think differently, work differently and resource differently if we’re going to make that longer term difference.”

If those changes are not made, Ms Bradley warned the committee, then there could be an increase in levels of crime among young people, health inequalities, employment and housing.

“All of these things, we will continue to see unless we properly equip the education service to do its part in addressing poverty, but also doing the things we need to do in other parts of society to more decisively tackle poverty at source,” she said.

If education authorities insist on doing a “quick fix”, that may provide some “short-term gains” in attainment but the root causes of poverty will remain unaddressed, she added.

“We have to take the opportunity coming out of the pandemic to re-frame and re-think so many aspects of our society,” she continued.

“If we’re genuinely committed to social justice… that has to be across a range of policy domains.”

Ms Bradley’s comments came during an evidence session on the Scottish Attainment Challenge – the Scottish Government initiative providing funding to schools to close the poverty-related attainment gap.

When asked by committee convener Stephen Kerr, those giving evidence said it is too early to know if the project has worked, but said it is already improving the situation on the ground in schools.

Jim Thewliss, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland, said: “Is it working and has it worked are not the same question.

“Has it worked? No it hasn’t, but I don’t think we’ve had the opportunity to see it fully through to understand if it has worked.

“Is it working? Yes, I think it is.”