Roz Foyer: Want to let Glasgow flourish? Help its children

The First Minister has a willing ally in our movement in making child poverty history. But last week’s Programme for Government was a very strange way of going about it. More to the point, it is simply wrong to suggest that the Government here has no choices. They may be hard choices, but isn’t that what setting priorities is all about?

Cutting our public services by £500million isn’t helpful, for a start. Breaking the manifesto pledge to roll out universal free school meals for all is nothing short of destructive. This is where government rhetoric must meet government action; you can’t on the one hand be an anti-poverty champion whilst breaking promises to those whose poverty you pledged to eradicate.

This is further compounded by the Scottish Government’s funding cuts to local authorities, leading Glasgow City Council to potentially reduce teaching posts by over 400.

Cutting teachers and teaching support staff is the opposite of what is required to support kids in poverty. Let Glasgow flourish; don’t cut the kids’ chances.

As a lifelong Glasgow resident and parent of two kids attending Glasgow secondary schools, I’ve seen the system. There is much for our kids to navigate in order to get a good education. In addition to the usual teenage pressures, our schools represent a deeply welcome tapestry of different cultures, languages and life experiences. Diversity is our strength – we’re aw Jock Tamson’s bairns, after all. Inclusive classrooms build pupil development and help my children to grow up and participate positively in a multicultural society that should be built upon tolerance and respect.

But too many Glasgow weans – and from across the nation – come from households suffering from extreme poverty and deprivation. Many of the children will have additional support needs that the system is failing to meet.

My eldest daughter is just about to take up a place at university. She has been given a first-class education at her Glasgow secondary school. She has always been academically talented, but talent alone is never enough. It’s her hard work and efforts that have enabled her to succeed. It’s also because of the excellent efforts of the teachers and other support staff who go above and beyond their stated job description to support every child to do their best. I’ll be eternally grateful to them for that.

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But I have also watched my younger daughter, just as full of talent and promise but with a complex range of additional support needs, really struggle with her school experience. Don’t get me wrong, all of the policies are in place to support her, all of the reports have been written up, all of the appropriate agencies involved and all of the boxes ticked, but the resources just aren’t there. Even the best teachers and support staff in the world can only cover up the cracks for so long.

Like any parent, I am a persistent advocate for my daughter's rights, but I can also see the huge gap between the policies on paper and what an already under-resourced Glasgow school can deliver.

We work with what we have. But every day we are failing children.

My heart genuinely aches for all the kids being let down in our schools but I also empathise with all of the teachers, many of whom are at breaking point.

The drug deaths, the rising energy bills, the poverty, the cost-of-living crisis, the rise in violence in the classroom. All of these issues are played out for real in Glasgow’s schools every single day.

(Image: Finance Secretary Shona Robison)

We have no other option; we all need to come together and demand better from Glasgow City Council and from the Scottish Government for our young people.

That is what Glasgow’s teachers are doing. The EIS, Scotland’s largest teaching union is currently balloting for strike action, not over their pay or terms and conditions, but in a desperate attempt to safeguard the staff and resources needed to deliver the education our children deserve. All power to their arms. They deserve our unflinching support.

They are taking action because words are not enough. And it’s a lesson which should be heeded by politicians north and south of the border.

Our current tax levels, and more importantly our tax system, work against the stated priorities of government. We are overtaxing wages and under-taxing property and assets. In so doing, we create a society in which those who own the property and assets become richer whilst those who do not, become inevitably poorer. This inequality then gets passed down through the generations. For all the talk about growth, and there’s nothing wrong with sustainable growth, we gain little or nothing if its proceeds fall into the hands of some and not others.

Even when we do tax property, we do it badly. A proportionate property tax would be the first step in raising additional revenue and addressing inequality. It would also mitigate against short-sighted political gimmicks such as last year’s council tax freeze. One fifth of the cost of the freeze could have guaranteed the roll-out of the Scottish Government’s now abandoned free school meals pledge.

If we are serious about tackling poverty, we urgently need more, not fewer, resources and support to be invested in our schools. If we fail the next generation then the impact on our nation, for generations to come, will be both socially and economically catastrophic. Restoring funding to our struggling schools and walking the walk on generational child poverty is the best way to start.