By Lewis Nicol

Education is the most important part of any child’s development. However, it is getting increasingly more difficult to maintain Scotland’s high educational standards, as Scotland was always among the highest ranking education systems in the world. Now, because of proposed cuts to the education budget, many fear that the standards will start to drop below par.

These worries come as Glasgow City Council announce plans to cut around 450 teaching staff jobs over the next three years. The effects of these plans are already being felt by many schools around Glasgow, as already, 172 teaching staff have been let go by their employers.

It is not only teaching staff that are being affected by these plans as support for learning staff are having to pick up on the shortfall of the lack of teachers.

Lorraine Dalrymple, a support for learning worker in Glasgow, said: “With a lot of the teacher cuts, the way things are going with the budgeting, there’s not enough money to supply for teachers, the support for learning workers are getting used more often now for larger groups of children to take them in and to do more of the learning that the teacher would maybe do with the children.”

She also spoke on the importance of support for learning workers in the education system. “I would say they are very important, we help in every kind of way, we help with the children, health wise, we help with the ability to help with their learning, we help in the, capacity of helping the teachers, we do the resources, we’re out in the playgrounds with them, so we are working with the children both in school and out of school, so we see a lot of different aspects of the children’s behaviours.”

Despite the negative reactions to the Glasgow City Council’s budget cuts, they have justified their decisions as they believe that the changes were necessary for Glasgow overall.

A council spokesperson said: “Officers are looking at several savings as part of a budget that required £108m of savings from council services over the next three years, not including social care. We know that this will be a worrying time for everyone – for many years education spending has been prioritised, relative to other services, in the budget process. However, with the education budget now amounting to half of service expenditure directed by the council, it is significantly more challenging to protect eductaion when substantial changes are needed.”

She has reaffirmed schools across Glasgow that, “Officers will continue to support our headteachers and their schools during this time. At every stage we will do everything we can to minimise any impact to schools but in the current financial climate the council must look at every option.”

If these plans go ahead, it will certainly be difficult to keep the high standards of the Scottish Education system. However, there is still hope as the final changes haven’t been implented and will not be until the end of October. There are still plans for industrial action from both teachers and support for learning staff, although, their attempts have been blocked but the Government has stated that they will lift these blocks in the near future.

To find out about any other plans for the education system or for the Glasgow area visit the Glasgow City Council website: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/