Report to the People
Inverclyde is Top of the Class
Last week’s report which showed that the quality of education Inverclyde’s young people receive is among the best in Scotland is something of which we can be justly proud.
Out of the Schools Inspectorate’s eleven performance measures, Inverclyde was found to be "very good" on seven and "good" on the remaining four. The report also confirmed that this good practice is being translated into results, with a third of our school leavers going on to university and the numbers going to college among the top six in the country.
But this is much more than a morale boost. The achievements of the Education Director, his officials, teachers, other school staff and of course pupils finally exposes the lie that being poor means you’re stupid.
Of course you need to work harder to support a child from an unstable household which has no history of education than you do to support his or her more affluent, secure counterpart. But this does not mean that the poorer pupil is less able or less deserving of a good education.
It is tremendous to see how passionately Inverclyde’s dedicated education professionals believe in this and the zeal with which they are pursuing it.
And they are also tackling poverty. Not necessarily a poverty of possessions or talent, but a poverty of ambition. If you have never known anything other than unemployment and despair, it takes a lot to lift your sights - to give you self-belief, to convince you that you are not stupid and that you do have the power to change your life.
This report shows us that our teachers are winning this fight and motivating their students to better themselves.
With the amount of money which is now being invested in education, we have the right to expect results and every child has the right to expect an equal chance in life. And, while this report helps ram home the value of education, this is not the time to rest on our laurels. The job is not over and issues such as the state of school buildings remain.
This report lays a foundation on which we can build and will prove a useful tool in promoting Inverclyde throughout the country. How better to tackle local depopulation than by trumpeting our success and using this report to encourage young families to "Live and Learn in Inverclyde"?
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