:00:00. > :00:00.not bode well for Labour. Add to that the fact that we have almost
:00:00. > :00:10.never had two successes, hung parliaments, and you are left
:00:11. > :00:13.scratching your head. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: By the age of
:00:14. > :00:16.five, pupils from disadvantaged families in Scotland are years
:00:17. > :00:21.behind other children in basic skills.
:00:22. > :00:25.Why are our schools continuing to fail children from poor backgrounds,
:00:26. > :00:30.and is our record worse than other countries?
:00:31. > :00:33.And in the latest of our interviews with leading candidates for the
:00:34. > :00:37.European elections, we will be putting the Liberal Democrats'
:00:38. > :00:41.George Lyon on the spot. Good evening. The family a child
:00:42. > :00:44.comes from has more influence on how well they will do at school than the
:00:45. > :00:48.schools they attend. For children from impoverished backgrounds, that
:00:49. > :00:50.can be a disaster. The gap between them and their better off peers
:00:51. > :00:55.grows throughout their school career. They are also more likely to
:00:56. > :00:58.leave without any qualifications and earn less as a result. These
:00:59. > :01:02.findings, from a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will not
:01:03. > :01:05.come as a surprise to anyone who takes an interest in these matters,
:01:06. > :01:09.but they also say that we don't seem to be having much success in closing
:01:10. > :01:20.the poverty gap, as Huw Williams reports.
:01:21. > :01:26.School dinners in Glasgow's East End. It is an area of deprivation,
:01:27. > :01:35.but perhaps poverty of experience matters as much as lack of cash.
:01:36. > :01:38.Today, we want to ensure that everyone in the school has been to
:01:39. > :01:45.the seaside. A number of years ago, a child said to me, what is the
:01:46. > :01:49.seaside? And it suddenly struck me that yes, we have children who go to
:01:50. > :01:55.Florida and Spain, but we have some children who do not know what the
:01:56. > :02:02.seaside is. This time, let's do 12 divided by
:02:03. > :02:09.three. The school does all it can to enrich pupils and fulfil their
:02:10. > :02:11.potential. We might have the challenge of some parents who
:02:12. > :02:20.themselves might have had poor schooling experience and whose
:02:21. > :02:26.aspirations are limited. There is a deprivation of opportunities. In
:02:27. > :02:29.other areas where I have worked, aspirations can sometimes be too
:02:30. > :02:35.high, and too much pressure is put on children. We have to look at each
:02:36. > :02:38.child as an individual. Every wee person who walks into a school is
:02:39. > :02:43.somebody's child, and they want the best for that child. But getting the
:02:44. > :02:51.best can be a real challenge. Like it or not, poor children do worse at
:02:52. > :02:55.school. By age five, you are talking about a 12 month gap in vocabulary
:02:56. > :02:59.and in problem solving skills between children from low-income
:03:00. > :03:04.households and those from more affluent backgrounds. And does that
:03:05. > :03:09.gap stayed throughout the school career? It actually expands as
:03:10. > :03:20.children go through their school career. By the time they reach age
:03:21. > :03:23.12 to 14, if we take numeracy, we have about 58% of children from
:03:24. > :03:29.affluent backgrounds who are doing well. But only 28% of children from
:03:30. > :03:35.low income households are performing well in numeracy. That is a huge
:03:36. > :03:40.gap. The hard lesson is that your parents' class and income they have
:03:41. > :03:46.more impact on your life chances than anything your teachers can do.
:03:47. > :03:50.A child's economic background makes more difference to the child's
:03:51. > :03:55.attainment than the kind of school they attend. So irrespective of what
:03:56. > :03:58.schools children go to, if they come from low-income households, the
:03:59. > :04:04.attainment is much lower. So our report is trying to provide guidance
:04:05. > :04:10.on what every school can do to help close the attainment gap. The report
:04:11. > :04:16.suggests action points for everyone involved in education. It says the
:04:17. > :04:21.Scottish government should provide guidance on how to close the
:04:22. > :04:23.attainment gap, make sure programmes have well-designed evaluation plans
:04:24. > :04:29.so that schools and teachers can choose what will work for them, and
:04:30. > :04:33.set up ways for robust research to be shared. It wants local
:04:34. > :04:38.authorities to look at evidence when they spend money, to give priority
:04:39. > :04:43.to helping disadvantaged children do better and to help schools learn
:04:44. > :04:48.from one another. And the report says schools should make narrowing
:04:49. > :04:52.the attainment gap a priority, and make this a key part of staff
:04:53. > :04:57.development programmes as well as monitoring how new initiatives
:04:58. > :05:04.actually work. If I look at West Dunbartonshire Council, they had
:05:05. > :05:07.astonishing positive results in literacy and numeracy because they
:05:08. > :05:12.invested in an approach that started at nursery and took you all the way
:05:13. > :05:15.through school. That is what Labour local authorities are doing. In
:05:16. > :05:19.Glasgow, we have nurtured classes where teachers work with smaller
:05:20. > :05:25.groups of children and young people, who perhaps have more social
:05:26. > :05:32.and behavioural issues to deal with before they can get to a positive
:05:33. > :05:35.learning experience. All of that needs to be effectively evaluated,
:05:36. > :05:40.and the Scottish government need to take a lead. The international
:05:41. > :05:45.comparison tables published last year showed that we had improvement
:05:46. > :05:49.in 2012 whereas the rest of the islands haven't. But we have more to
:05:50. > :05:54.do. It confirms many things we are doing, such as making sure that
:05:55. > :05:59.schools focus on individual young people and that we are working with
:06:00. > :06:02.parents and working on teacher leadership. A range of things are
:06:03. > :06:07.happening, but they make other good suggestions, so it is help, because
:06:08. > :06:12.this is a problem we need to solve. But it is not just an education
:06:13. > :06:16.problem, it is a problem of offer tea. Meanwhile, the tragedy is that
:06:17. > :06:23.we seem to have got used to generations of children failing. And
:06:24. > :06:26.that impoverishes all of us. We are talking about children who will
:06:27. > :06:31.leave school without any qualifications, children who are
:06:32. > :06:37.three times more likely to be in unemployment, children who are more
:06:38. > :06:43.likely to earn lower incomes when they do get a job, and children who
:06:44. > :06:51.could potentially become inventors, set up businesses, potentially
:06:52. > :06:56.provide a very dynamic economy within Scotland who are not
:06:57. > :06:59.participating in it. So if we give these children a chance, it is not
:07:00. > :07:03.only good for them, but it is good for the country.
:07:04. > :07:06.I'm joined in the studio by one of the authors of that Joseph Rowntree
:07:07. > :07:08.Foundation report, Dr Sue Ellis from Strathclyde University, and from
:07:09. > :07:14.Edinburgh by Professor Lindsay Paterson, who has done research into
:07:15. > :07:20.education and social mobility. Sue Ellis, I found it striking that it
:07:21. > :07:24.is not just that there are problems, but Scotland seems to be not as good
:07:25. > :07:29.at dealing with them as other countries. Not as good as England
:07:30. > :07:35.and Wales, which seems to be a lot better. In terms of the poverty
:07:36. > :07:39.gap, the actual attainment in Scotland is on a par with other
:07:40. > :07:43.countries. But the gap between rich and poor is worse in Scotland and we
:07:44. > :07:50.don't seem to be making the sort of impact on that that we should be. I
:07:51. > :07:54.don't quite understand. Are you saying the problem is that there is
:07:55. > :07:58.more income inequality in Scotland, rather than anything to do with the
:07:59. > :08:03.education system? There is a bigger gap between the attainment of
:08:04. > :08:09.children between rich and poor in Scotland and there is in other
:08:10. > :08:14.countries. Why is that? We don't really know. We have the
:08:15. > :08:18.architecture in place that will allow teachers to adapt the
:08:19. > :08:24.curriculum according to the children they teach, as you heard in the
:08:25. > :08:30.film. We have got getting it right for every child, a programme to make
:08:31. > :08:34.sure schools are tending to the attainment of individuals and not
:08:35. > :08:37.just teaching the class. But we have not got the implementation advice
:08:38. > :08:45.and the welly, if you like, to make that work in practice. That is why
:08:46. > :08:49.our reporter talks about the people who could be making that work, the
:08:50. > :08:56.inspectors, the teachers, local authorities, parents. At one point,
:08:57. > :09:02.your report seems to suggest that only parental involvement can make a
:09:03. > :09:09.difference. No, lots of things can make a difference. Parental
:09:10. > :09:17.involvement, home-school links, preschool education, good literacy
:09:18. > :09:22.education makes a big difference. Some types of mentoring programmes
:09:23. > :09:29.make a difference. But the report says recent evidence suggests that
:09:30. > :09:34.only parental involvement makes a significant contribution to closing
:09:35. > :09:38.the attainment gap. Parental involvement makes a big
:09:39. > :09:43.contribution, but it is the type of parental involvement that really
:09:44. > :09:48.matters. It is not about schools sending homework home to parents to
:09:49. > :09:52.do, because the research shows that parents from low-income households
:09:53. > :09:55.spend as much time doing homework with children as parents from
:09:56. > :09:59.middle-class households. But the quality of the help they can give is
:10:00. > :10:03.not as good because their own education is not as good. So it is
:10:04. > :10:09.about schools having strong links with the community, but it is also
:10:10. > :10:13.about schools designing a curriculum that addresses the needs of the
:10:14. > :10:17.children, and a knowledge which curriculum. If they don't know what
:10:18. > :10:25.the seaside is like Tom they can't understand the things they are
:10:26. > :10:31.reading about. Lindsay Paterson, you have looked into this issue. The
:10:32. > :10:37.findings of this report are a stark contrast to the rhetoric we hear
:10:38. > :10:40.from politicians about how we have a great education system and we care
:10:41. > :10:46.about equality more than anywhere else. Yes. Although there are
:10:47. > :10:50.variations internationally, broadly speaking, the pattern is the same
:10:51. > :10:55.across the developed world. The major factor in explaining these
:10:56. > :10:57.inequalities is simply poverty, both the material poverty that means some
:10:58. > :11:01.children can't get access because their parents can't afford to buy
:11:02. > :11:05.access to various kinds of educational gift is outside the
:11:06. > :11:09.school, but also, as Sue Ellis said, it is the fact that people in
:11:10. > :11:12.poverty have a poor education themselves and are therefore less
:11:13. > :11:17.able to add to the school when doing things at home with their children.
:11:18. > :11:21.The point she makes is that it is not poverty of expectation, it is an
:11:22. > :11:26.inability to help your child in the way you want. Yes. The problem is
:11:27. > :11:32.that once a parent does not have that, there is not much the school
:11:33. > :11:35.can do to educate the parents to educate the child. That is why
:11:36. > :11:39.expecting schools to do this is unfair and will not work. We know
:11:40. > :11:42.from 50 years of this research that schools can only make a small
:11:43. > :11:52.difference. Ultimately, society matters.
:11:53. > :11:56.In Scotland we have a terrible method of setting up these
:11:57. > :12:05.programmes would no method of evaluation. We have reports on the
:12:06. > :12:13.NHS in Scotland are saying much the same thing. We don't have the
:12:14. > :12:20.information? Yes, indeed. Scotland is in a far worse position than it
:12:21. > :12:22.was before devolution. We have fewer hard statistical evidence on
:12:23. > :12:30.educational inequality than we used to have. And England, it is much
:12:31. > :12:36.better than the 1990s, particularly in London weather has been enormous
:12:37. > :12:43.improvements on reducing inequality. What struck me, Sue Ellis, you make
:12:44. > :12:47.the point somewhere in Europe ought that the new curriculum does not
:12:48. > :12:51.only not provide you with the information that you need, but if it
:12:52. > :12:59.tests anything, it tests the wrong things? That is just the sort of
:13:00. > :13:04.data schools have available. We have less data than we had even 20 years
:13:05. > :13:08.ago. But Lindsey is wrong to say that schools cannot make a
:13:09. > :13:12.difference. The improvements in London indicate they do make a
:13:13. > :13:18.difference and can get children out of poverty. We need intervention in
:13:19. > :13:23.primary schools and secondary schools. The whole system needs to
:13:24. > :13:26.work together to do that. Does not make the slightest bit of difference
:13:27. > :13:32.if we simply don't know which techniques are effective. And even
:13:33. > :13:42.ones that may be effective, nobody is gathering the data? Schools need
:13:43. > :13:48.guidance about how to use policies to narrow the gap. They need data
:13:49. > :13:52.about how their schools are doing. In lower secondary it is due to come
:13:53. > :13:58.on stream. Primary schools do not have that data. If schools want to
:13:59. > :14:02.know how they are doing, they have two by a commercial standardised
:14:03. > :14:13.test. That is really expensive and it is an outgoing for every single
:14:14. > :14:18.year. I would favour having tests free to use first Scottish schools.
:14:19. > :14:22.But schools also need information about how to analyse those tests and
:14:23. > :14:28.what to do, and what is likely to work. My apologise to you both. We
:14:29. > :14:32.are out of time. Now, the latest in our series of
:14:33. > :14:34.interviews with the leading candidates in the upcoming European
:14:35. > :14:38.Parliament election. The Liberal Democrats face a tough fight to hold
:14:39. > :14:41.on to their one Scottish MEP. In a moment I'll speak to their lead
:14:42. > :14:50.candidate, George Lyon, but first here's Emma Ailes.
:14:51. > :14:54.A taste of the strong stuff to go with some strong words from the
:14:55. > :14:58.Scottish Liberal Democrats. A stark choice is what they say they are
:14:59. > :15:03.giving voters, claiming they are the only party offering a clear
:15:04. > :15:08.commitment to staying in Europe. We are unashamedly pro-European. We
:15:09. > :15:13.want to make the case for staying in Europe because it means work. There
:15:14. > :15:16.are 3 million jobs in Britain associated with European markets. It
:15:17. > :15:18.means work. There are 3 million jobs in Britain associated with European
:15:19. > :15:20.markets. Additionally important at a time the European Union is under
:15:21. > :15:25.stress, that's in the stands up and makes the case for the European
:15:26. > :15:31.Union. That is what the Liberal Democrats are doing. They argue
:15:32. > :15:37.Scotland's place in Europe supports about 300,000 jobs and contributes
:15:38. > :15:45.?1 billion a year to the Scottish budget. Like other parties, the Lib
:15:46. > :16:00.Dems did not waste the opportunity to make mention of the referendum.
:16:01. > :16:05.The Lib Dems currently have one man in Brussels. But with the party
:16:06. > :16:09.suffering a slump in support since the last European elections, it is
:16:10. > :16:11.by no means certain they will be toasting success in the upcoming
:16:12. > :16:14.ballast. I'm joined now by George Lyon, who
:16:15. > :16:24.tops the Liberal Democrats' list for the European Parliament elections.
:16:25. > :16:30.There's no delicate way to put this, but you are going to lose your seat,
:16:31. > :16:41.aren't you? We are taking a very strong and powerful message out
:16:42. > :16:46.there. Opinion polls, and go. The only poll that counts is on the 22nd
:16:47. > :16:51.of May. We are saying this election is about jobs and economic recovery.
:16:52. > :16:56.We believe as a party that if we want to secure the jobs linked to
:16:57. > :17:01.Europe, over 300,000, if we want to secure our economic recovery, we
:17:02. > :17:06.have to stay in Britain and in the European Union. I wasn't sure if you
:17:07. > :17:09.were going to resort to the only poll that matters. Even you would
:17:10. > :17:15.have to admit the Liberal Democrats are not doing well in the polls. If
:17:16. > :17:20.you are going to keep your seat, you are going to have to prove that
:17:21. > :17:24.might improve that dramatically. Do you think realistically there is
:17:25. > :17:32.anything you can do to turn it around? Absolutely. This poll on the
:17:33. > :17:37.22nd of May will probably be a low turnout. We are confident we can
:17:38. > :17:42.turn out the votes we need to secure the seat. We're working day after
:17:43. > :17:49.day making sure that our vote will come out. Is your hope that because
:17:50. > :17:54.perhaps Liberal Democrat voters are more engaged with Europe, that no
:17:55. > :17:59.matter what the polls say, you can do a better job at getting your vote
:18:00. > :18:02.out than the other parties? Absolutely. There are a whole lot of
:18:03. > :18:07.people in Scotland who want a party to stand up and defend our position
:18:08. > :18:11.in Europe and in the United Kingdom. Uniquely as a party we are saying we
:18:12. > :18:16.are better off in Britain and in the European Union. And if you go with
:18:17. > :18:23.the other parties, the Tories want to take us out of Europe. The SNP
:18:24. > :18:31.and the Greens want to take a set of Britain. People in Scotland and the
:18:32. > :18:38.rest of the UK would rather like a poll on whether or not to stay in
:18:39. > :18:41.the European Union? We have legislated for that as part of the
:18:42. > :19:17.Coalition Government. We have said quite clearly.
:19:18. > :19:18.saying is that if you threaten our position in the EU... That comes
:19:19. > :19:23.dangerously close to saying the electorate do not know what they are
:19:24. > :19:28.talking about. No. If you want to secure jobs, if you want to secure
:19:29. > :19:34.the recovery, the fastest in Europe, then we are better off in
:19:35. > :19:42.Britain and Europe. Is your problem here, do you think, how much is it a
:19:43. > :19:45.problem with the Liberal Democrats here and how much is it to do with
:19:46. > :19:50.the fact you were in coalition government I don't think we have a
:19:51. > :19:54.problem. We have a strong message. We are delivering what we promised
:19:55. > :20:03.at Westminster. We have cut taxes. We have increased pensions and
:20:04. > :20:07.created jobs. To be fair, I have asked Labour and the Conservatives
:20:08. > :20:12.this question, I'm going to ask it of you. Will Scotland be a member of
:20:13. > :20:27.the European Union if there is a Yes vote? Scotland votes yes, we have
:20:28. > :20:33.become a third country. What happens to you if you win? Will you resign?
:20:34. > :20:39.Clearly what will happen is we will become an accession country, a third
:20:40. > :20:43.country applying to get back in. I suspect what will happen to me and
:20:44. > :20:50.the other MEPs is we will become observer studies MEPs. As the
:20:51. > :20:59.Croatian have been -- as the Croatian MPs have been. Would you
:21:00. > :21:05.not feel honour bound to resign? No. Because I feel we will stay in
:21:06. > :21:08.Britain and in Europe. And finally, a quick look at what'll
:21:09. > :21:11.be making headlines tomorrow. Good Morning Scotland from six tomorrow
:21:12. > :21:15.morning on BBC Radio Scotland will have details of a new report on
:21:16. > :21:18.waiting times at A units, and asking why so many of this year's
:21:19. > :21:21.Turner Prize nominees have Glasgow connections. Newsnet Scotland says
:21:22. > :21:24.the SNP has welcomed confirmation from a UK Government Minister that
:21:25. > :21:29.current state pensions will be safe if there's a Yes vote. And a new
:21:30. > :21:32.edition of the online magazine the Scottish Review includes analysis of
:21:33. > :21:37.what the rise of UKIP might mean for Scotland.
:21:38. > :21:39.That's all from me. More news is always on BBC Scotland's website.
:21:40. > :21:44.Goodnight.