We must hope Nicola Sturgeon’s remaining supporters are, right now, judging her. That’s what she wanted, after all. In a speech back in 2015 — the year she led the SNP to its third Holyrood election victory — Sturgeon said education would be her priority during her time in office. ‘Let me be clear,’ she said, ‘I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters.’
Of course, it was easy for Sturgeon to demand she be judged because she knew she wouldn’t be. None of her supporters was willing to rock the boat by pointing out the many ways in which the SNP had failed teachers and pupils. That same blind loyalty meant Sturgeon could also state her intention to close the attainment gap between teenagers from the wealthiest and poorest backgrounds ‘completely’ — and her followers took her seriously.
Sturgeon may be gone from office, but she cannot deny responsibility for her abject failure in this area. The results of this year’s Scottish high school exams (National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers) are out and the picture isn’t great. The pass rate has fallen and the attainment gap between results obtained by kids from affluent backgrounds and their poorest peers has widened. Education Secretary and master of pathos Jenny Gilruth points out the attainment gap is narrower than in 2019 — but only just, and it is undeniable that things have got worse every year since.
Throughout her time in office, Sturgeon could be heard insisting she was driven by the need to ensure young people from the least prosperous backgrounds could enjoy the same advantages she had as a schoolgirl from a working-class background. This stuff might have thrilled those nationalists fully gripped by the fantasy that Sturgeon is a uniquely moral and wise political leader but anyone paying the slightest attention could see it was hogwash.
The SNP’s stewardship of the Scottish education system has been overly cautious. There has been not serious attempt at reform which suggests either a lack of imagination or the fear that to rock the boat might delay the journey to the promised land of independence. I suspect it is a cocktail of both in this instance.
And it is not just on education that the SNP failed to take action to ensure the service was fit-for-purpose. A similarly managerial approach to the NHS has seen the service decline, with some doctors warning that it is on the verge of collapse. Thanks to the baffling number of Scots voters whose obsession with independence allows them to overlook or square away catastrophic SNP failures, Sturgeon was able — for a long time — to outrun any consequences for her inadequacy.
Her successor as SNP leader, Humza Yousaf, doesn’t enjoy the same levels of goodwill that Sturgeon did with the rank and file. Nicola Sturgeon was never judged on her failure to close the attainment gap. Humza Yousaf, on the other hand, may find that even SNP members are happy to hold him accountable for the ongoing failure of this mission.
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