Forcing primary school pupils to sit standardised tests is “reckless” and could go “badly wrong”, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has claimed.
Willie Rennie also compared the SNP’s education reforms to the party’s merging of Scotland’s eight police forces into a single service, which has been beset with major problems in its infancy.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has singled out education as her top priority for her next term in government but the North East Fife MSP claimed there would be “problems with national testing”.
He said: “What they are doing is undermining the relationship between teacher and pupil and they also cut right through the curriculum for excellence principle.
“That was supposed to be putting power back into the hands of teachers, not taking it away from them.
“It has the potential to badly wrong, to create a bureaucracy and a culture in primary schools of teaching to the test.
“We got rid of the test before, the Thatcherite test, because they were having adverse effects.
“So I think the potential for them to go badly wrong, obviously in different ways from the police, but they are big and I believe reckless changes that I believe will have an adverse effect.”
Mr Rennie urged the SNP leader to listen to teachers, with those in secondary schools threatening industrial action over workload and staff shortages across the country.
Given the Nationalists are two MSPs short of a majority, the Lib Dems could be Kingmakers at Holyrood despite being the smallest party with a group of five.
And their leader signalled his willingness to work with Finance Secretary John Swinney on key areas such as the Budget, despite The Courier revealing this week it would require the sacking of Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead for negotiations to begin.
Key areas up for discussion would be education and childcare, health, particularly mental health and the availability of GPs, and increasing the number of warm homes.
Although Mr Rennie insisted he won’t be “bought off with beans”, he said tax rises would not necessarily be part of any deal if the SNP could show how they were going to pay for their promises.
The Liberals proposed a 1p income tax hike in their Holyrood election manifesto, whereas the SNP vowed to keep rates as they are.
Mr Rennie said: “If we’re convinced the extra money is real then we will go with that. It’s about what we get, what the inputs are, rather than where it comes from.
“We would just take a lot of convincing you could just magic up this extra money without asking for a little bit extra.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said they have “absolutely no intention of creating school league tables” or returning to the “high-stakes testing regime of old”.
“The National Improvement Framework will draw in a range of information to help us improve attainment and close the attainment gap,” he added.
“For the first time all schools will be using the same assessments tailored to the Curriculum for Excellence.
“The assessments will inform teacher judgement and give parents meaningful information about their child’s progress at key points.
“They will be used by teachers in the classroom alongside other assessment evidence.”
