This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

More than a decade ago, the SNP declared it would “eliminate” the attainment gap.

As I’ve explained before, this was always a stupid thing to promise, because it is just not possible. That ‘gap’ isn’t a function of weak teachers or failing schools – it is what poverty and inequality look like through the lens of education.

Anyone who really thought that a few tweaks to education policy could make the effects of deep-rooted, multi-generational poverty disappear was misguided. Yet here we are.

It rapidly became clear that the party had made promises it could never deliver, and so over time the language changed. Ambitions to “close the attainment gap completely” were eventually reduced to simply “narrowing” it. This looked much more achievable and, although this isn’t well known, a series of specific targets were then set – you might even say the record against which they should be judged was established.

In 2016/17, the attainment gap for primary literacy was 22.1 percentage points, while the figure for numeracy was 17.6 percentage points. In secondary schools, there was a 13.6 point literacy gap and a 14.9 point numeracy gap.

By 2024/25, all four of those figures were to be reduced to just five percentage points.  

Sign up for weekly expert insight into Scottish education.

To the surprise of not a single person who knows what they’re talking about, the SNP has never come remotely close to achieving those targets, before or after the pandemic.

Sure, some progress has been made, but it is minimal: since 2017, literacy and numeracy gaps have come down by fractions of percentage points per year.

The latest data says the gaps for primary literacy and numeracy are 19.4 points and 16.6 points respectively.

At secondary school, the literacy gap is 10.8 points while the numeracy gap is 11.6 points.

In an attempt to draw attention away from all of this, the government is fond of saying that the figures are the best since record began; they are far less fond of admitting that those records don’t even go back to when the SNP first took office in 2007, or that the data behind them is questionable at best.

In response to these increasingly glaring failures, the SNP simply, and shamelessly, slashed the targets – and still don’t look like they’ve got any chance of achieving them.

There were other targets related to the attainment gap, with the government also deciding to use the measure of the number of pupils leaving school with at least one qualification at levels 4, 5 and 6.

Once again, we were promised dramatic reductions in attainment gaps – once again, it didn’t happen. 

At SCQF level 4, the target was two percentage points. It is currently at eight points.

The target for level 5 was five points, but it stands at 21.4 points.

And at level 6, which includes Highers, the target was 15 points, but it stands at 37.7 points.

It gets worse, too, because those gaps are actually wider now than they were pre-pandemic.

"And it gets worse, because those attainment gaps are actually wider now than they were pre-pandemic." (Image: Derek McArthur)

The First Minister who started all of this, and whose rhetoric did so much damage to schools, teachers and pupils over the past 11 years, is about to leave parliament, having blithely admitted in her autobiography that she didn’t know what she was talking about at the time.

The man who was education secretary during this period is now the First Minister and is seeking not just re-election, but a parliamentary majority. It’s worth noting that he has also been rebuked by the official statistics body over the claim that “the overall poverty-related attainment gap [in Scotland] has reduced by 60 per cent since 2009-10.”

He defends his government’s actions by saying that they have “invested” £1.75bn in closing the gap. That’s one word for it. Another is wasted, and given the staggering lack of progress in exchange for all that spending, it looks like a much more accurate description.

Here’s the truth: at a time when money is incredibly tight, the SNP has blown nearly £2bn on policies that any honest person would conclude have demonstrably failed.

What’s more, the pursuit of these policies – about which the government was warned again and again – has also been a barrier to alternative approaches that might have actually made a real difference.

It’s time for the country to move on from this debacle, regardless of who wins the coming election. Too much damage has been done, and too many opportunities missed.

If the SNP hadn’t been so defensive about education (at least in part as a result of their constant failures to deliver on their own promises) then they might not have kicked meaningful educational reform into the longest grass they could find. We could be pursuing the sort of changes that everyone (including the people the government chose to advise them) knows that we need.

But as things stand, we’re all being weighed down by the SNP’s refusal to accept reality and admit their failures, and if that continues after their near-inevitable election victory in May, things are only going to get even worse.

Scotland’s children, teachers, and schools can’t afford another lost decade, but avoiding it depends upon the SNP holding up their hands and acknowledging that they got things very wrong. It requires a display of honesty, integrity, and humility.

You can draw your own conclusions as to how likely that outcome might be.

© Herald Scotland