Last year's exam statistics showed an alarming slump in the performance of Borders state schools. What had been a statistical blip is turning into a serious decline.
On the key measure - the percentage of pupils at S4 (the last year of compulsory education) getting five good grades including Maths and English - the stats are as follows:
1997: 54%
1998: 53%
1999: 55%
2000: 55%
2001: 57%
2002: 58%
2003: 50%
2004: 49%
2005: 51%
2006: 50%
2007: 46%
This is over a period of enormously increased resources being pumped into our schools. Latest figures from the government show that, over the last decade, spending per pupil has DOUBLED.
Based on the figures above, that suggests that we are now getting LESS THAN HALF the productivity, value for money, whatever you want to call it, than we were ten years ago. Or, in other words, a lot of taxpayers money has been squandered. And the situation is getting worse.
What is going on here? Our economy is being damaged by unnecessary taxation while the future of our young poeple is being undermined year by year. Does Scottish Borders Council have an explanation?
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3 comments:
I'm an unreconstructed hippie in that I believe in the mantra - our children are our future. This news therefore makes for a bleak outlook. How can things be in such decline? Who is responsible at SBC for such matters? Is it the Councillors or the management team?
There's obviously no way that anyone can say it's a temporary blip either, because there's clearly a trend.
certainly over in the Far East (Berwickshire)there's some serious questions being asked by people about how the new PFI built Berwickshire High is going to pan out. While a new school building offers many positive aspects for the education of our future t still needs urgent attention from SBC.
Spending per pupil has doubled - has it really? I wonder how much of this money has gone on employing more bureaucrats in Council offices to organize such schemes as PPI.
Something drastic seems to have happened between 2002 and 2003.
It's quite clear that Borders pupils are losing out.
Lets not confuse hard facts by opinions.
In the last 9 years the number of teachers in Scotland has increased by 57% while the number of "other employees" has increased by 215%.
If you want a proper job to be done spend the money in employing people who are trained to do the job, not on helpers and backup staff.
It is time that society recognized that we probably now spend more money in proving that a job has been done than we actually do in doing the job - almost certainly true in the NHS, civil service and big business as well as education.
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