NICOLA Sturgeon has dismantled claims made by the Scottish Conservatives that her government used Covid "as a shield" to deflect responsibility for Scotland's attainment gap figures.
Speaking at First Minister's Questions, Douglas Ross claimed that Nicola Sturgeon had failed to meet her promise to close the attainment gap in education, which refers to the lower chance of children from poorer backgrounds progressing onto further education in Scotland.
The First Minister then pointed out that the wording in the SNP manifesto was to "substantially eliminate the attainment gap" and highlighted that before the pandemic the poverty-related income gap was closing.
