Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, (Cowal), the Argyll and Bute Council Policy Lead for Education, has said that parents are being left in the dark over school standards by the SNP Government’s policies. Her comments follow the decision by the Government to cancel the surveys which previously analysed the mathematics ability of youngsters. A report of the Education Committee of the Scottish Parliament has warned there will be a five-year gap in data in relation to the numeracy skills of Scotland’s pupils.

Councillor McNeilly said:  “The STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) are critically important for the future of our young people and the future of the economy of our country. They all depend on a grasp of maths. And yet the SNP are not allowing us to scrutinise how well our education system is performing with regard to this subject.

“If you are the parent of a seven-year-old now, you’re not going to know until your child is a teenager whether or not this country is getting any better at teaching maths.

“Nicola Sturgeon seems to fear that if we switch the lights on we will be horrified by what we see.”

Her warnings have been backed by Donald Cameron, (Highlands and Islands). He said: “Everyone knows that the worst of the SNP’s policy failures in their 12 years in government has been education.

“International studies showed that, compared to other European countries, our results have declined drastically. Of course, the SNP then cancelled our participation in these studies when they realised how bad they looked.

“And now they are drawing a veil over the mathematics ability of our youngsters because performance in maths is relatively easy to measure compared to some other subjects.”

“If SNP ministers spent less time agitating about a second independence referendum, and more time governing on behalf of the people they are supposed to be serving, our education system might be in a better place by now.”