Scotland’s unpopular First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sees her ‘gender balance’ experiment crash on the rocks as Angela Constance goofs on new education bill, branded ‘futile’ and ‘irrelevant’ by education expert, Sturgeon’s inept SNP Government outed yet again!

Dear All

Having had several donkeys occupying the role as SNP Education Sec, the last under the Alex Salmond regime being Mike Russell, who was woefully inept, you might have expected that unpopular Nicola Sturgeon would try and raise the SNP game.

What does she do, she appoints another donkey in the shape of Angela Constance.

Anyway, the SNP has come up with an new Education Bill, now you might think that educational experts would welcome new measures to help students to achieve and prosper.

But no!

Professor Lindsay Paterson says the Scottish Government’s Education Bill “won’t achieve much” and is "irrelevant" to raising standards.

In previous blog posts, you will have caught I said that the SNP don’t do law well, and that there is a genuine lack of talent in the SNP.

Both these observations have borne out to be true.

So, what is wrong with the Bill?

Well according to Professor Lindsay Paterson said it contains no proposals for how local authorities should tackle an “extremely difficult” long-term problem of raising standards.

Do you see what I mean about a lack of talent, this crap is like someone offering you a hot pie and when you try to eat it, you find out it is cold and when the crust is lifted up there is no filling inside.

Creating a legal obligation for the worst schools to improve would make no difference, because firstly, teachers are already doing “the best they can” for their children and secondly, education isn’t solely a matter for teachers. If the pupils don’t get the right support and engagement then legal obligation or not; it fails them in every sense!

This legislation is pointless and reminds me of the movie ‘Downfall’, you may remember Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler issuing orders for armies that had been wiped out to attack.

In the World at War series, someone who was close to Hitler said the Fuhrer used to wave his arms about saying ‘attack here, attack there, and took no account of practical difficulties’. Well that is what the backward SNP is like; they don’t have a clue what they are doing or what is expecting of them; so they just bumble along making it up.    

Professor Paterson is correct when he says Scottish ministers should conduct in-depth research, this echoes what I said on occasion regarding some of the rubbish being spout out by the SNP re their wisdom on justice.

To have such an expert as Professor Paterson speak is something that the SNP should be concerned about, and then listen to, on top of this Scotland’s councils back his concerns.

Teaching is a massive job, and I speak as a former teacher at Glasgow University where I taught fitness in my youth.

One of the ‘rights’ of the new Bill is that parents of preschool children are to be given the right to request primary lessons in Gaelic.

I know of only one person who speaks Gaelic, and if Sturgeon and Constance think that there will be a massive uptake for this they are going to be sadly mistaken.

Prof Paterson said:

“Proposing a law to outlaw inequality is futile. This is a declaration of intent but a law does not create any new knowledge about how to reduce inequalities or understand why some schools or pupils underperform. It’s doing something irrelevant. Is the Scottish Government saying there are certain teachers who are resisting that knowledge and are not doing the best they can for their children?”

Good points.

So, instead of effective law, we have a declaration of intent, we have had a ‘Declaration of Cineworld’, and we all know how that turn out, rather badly for the Scottish National Party.

This Bill is a paper shuffling exercise nothing more, it is ‘working with partners’ nonsense, be seen to be doing something when nothing is actually happening.

Only 3.9 per cent of pupils in Scotland's most deprived communities managed to get three A grades in their Higher exams compared to 24.2 per cent in the wealthiest places.

So, can this be fixed?

The answer is yes, it is a matter of culture.

Pupils will response to a culture that they can invest in mentality, my time at Glasgow University as a teacher was successful. I realised early on, remembering something wasn’t enough, they had to understand it and be able to analyse. Consequently I taught the elite of the university because I made them the elite, in fact the teaching staff used to ask my training partners for advice.

Unveiling the Bill, Angela Constance, the Scottish Education Minister, said:

“This Government is absolutely committed to ensuring Scotland is the best place to grow up, with every child given the best chance to succeed, and the provisions of this Bill will help us achieve that aspiration.”

How does the fact that there are no proposals in the Bill achieve that?

Simple things impress simple people!

I have said in the past, the people in the SNP have a habit of dumping shit on others and leave them to sort it out, this Bill is another classic example of this modus operandi.

Liz Smith, Scottish Tory young people spokesman, said:

“These are the usual hard words from the Scottish Government on a critical issue, without a single idea of how to turn these words into action. It’s all very well coming up with a legal requirement, but as we’ve seen with patient waiting times, it hardly guarantees success.”

Some time ago, I came up with the idea of community colleges run out of schools where people could sign and get extra education; the money could be funded from different sources.

Type into Google; ‘George Laird’ and ‘Community Colleges’ if you wish to see some of my back posts on this subject. It is time that Scotland moved towards a different education system, four tier education. Primary, secondary, community college, higher and further education model!

An idea I also had was for Japanese style cramming after school sessions, this idea has been very successful in Japan for pupils who are keen to set themselves on a career path. A teacher, one of whom I know does additional teaching for her pupils who are learning languages so their grades are pretty good, why, because they are properly motivated. The pupils can see results but more than that they have a sense of direction and loyalty, they aren’t going to let their teacher down.

This Bill should be halted in its tracks and farmed out to several universities to set up working groups, once something meaningful has been thrashed out; then bring it back to Holyrood so a consensus can be reached.

Just yesterday on the blog, I wrote:

“The Quiet No blog shows in detail how cronyism operates which has resulted in the SNP being a political vacuum not just of ideas but also of a work ethic”.

It really is a political vacuum because this Education Bill as Professor Lindsay Paterson says is ‘futile’ and ‘irrelevant’.

Finally, I also wrote yesterday on the current Sturgeon mantra that ‘SNP women will get things done’, what did Angela Constance achieve, other than flag up her ignorance of education, demonstrate that she can’t provide solutions and then to cap it all, passes the buck onto others to do her work!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University