The Covid-19 pandemic has “decimated” those living in the poorest areas of West Dunbartonshire when it comes to closing the school attainment gap according to councillors.
The local authority was one of the nine “Challenge” authorities allocated funding from the Scottish Attainment Challenge Fund which was set up to accelerate the pace in which Scotland closes the poverty related school achievements gap.
A revised model, for all 32 local authorities, will reduce West Dunbartonshire’s annual allocation to £5.1 million between March 2022 and 2026, which could have been £8.1 million had the former scheme remained in place.
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The issue was discussed at the most recent education committee meeting.
Labour councillor Martin Rooney said: “As reported to council in February 2022, the Scottish Government published data on literacy and numeracy levels which confirm that the attainment gap between pupils in the most and least deprived areas of Scotland has widened.
“While national attainment figures have reduced overall, those pupils from the poorest areas of Scotland have seen the biggest decrease in attainment.
“They are going to reduce the annual income to West Dunbartonshire, reducing the capacity of the service to deliver strategic priorities for raised attainment and achievement.
“Didn’t someone say judge me on my record in terms of education and do we want to make any comment on how that record is going.”
The leader of West Dunbartonshire Council, councillor Jonathon McColl and opposition leader, councillor Martin Rooney previously agreed to write to the Scottish Government to reject these terms and request the current level of funding to West Dunbartonshire remains the same.
During the meeting last week chairwoman SNP councillor Karen Conaghan said the council had to encourage children to be in a state where they are ready to learn despite the council not being happy with the reduction in funding.
She added: “I think the main thing to be said is that this pandemic has decimated those who are in the poorest of households and its been really quite saddening to see the progress that was being made, being reversed and those young people suffering as a result of this.
“We have to focus on health and well being and encourage our young people to be in a state where they are ready to learn. In terms of the attainment challenge funding, that’s something we have agreed we are not happy with the reduction in that.
“We do receive a significant amount of money from the government which has been a fantastic support to our pupils but we do bemoan we are not getting as much as we were previously.”
