SCHOOL attendance rates across Glasgow are still not as high as they were pre-Covid according to official statistics.
A report presented to the operations and scrutiny committee highlighted that attendance rates for 2022/23 sat at 89% compared to pre-Covid levels in 2018/2019 when attendance rates were more than 92%.
It comes as “worrying statistics” which highlight the attainment gap between the most and least deprived children across the city were highlighted during Thursday’s meeting by councillor John Daly.
Official figures show that in numeracy the attainment gap in P1, P4 and P7 was just above 15% in 2022/23 while the literacy attainment gap sat at 20%.
Councillor Daly said: "I refer to some of the aspects of education and some of the rather worrying statistics in terms of benchmarking that is here for Glasgow education.
"In numeracy and literacy Glasgow is appearing 24th and 25th respectively in the rankings and attendance is ranked 29th.
"We have had a period of focused spending on attainment across Scotland, specifically in Glasgow to reduce the attainment gap. While looking beyond these figures we can see that Glasgow is doing okay in reducing the attainment gap between the most deprived and least deprived children – that’s slowing according to these figures.
"We are now looking at 89% average attendance rates for Glasgow’s school children, that’s effectively one day a fortnight – that’s a huge amount of education to lose.
"I know how hard the authority and how hard Glasgow’s teachers and support staff work in schools – this amidst a real focus and additional money coming through the Scottish Attainment Challenge.
"Obviously times are changing now and at the last Budget we looked at £13 million worth of education cuts.
"How robust is the system in Glasgow in the training of staff quality that despite these cuts that are on their way we can still achieve quality results for Glasgow’s children to ensure that the attainment gap between the least and the most privileged doesn’t widen all the further.
"We have to be clever, strategic and robust in how Glasgow’s education system handles this going forward."
A council officer confirmed the local authority was doing well for children who come from poorer backgrounds.
They said: "We are doing well for our children and young people from poorer backgrounds. That would be the same for literacy and numeracy.
"There are issues with attendance across the whole of Scotland – we can see that Glasgow is sitting at 89%. The national level is 90%.
"You can see there has been a fall nationally from Covid and getting our children and young people back into schools.
"That is an issue Glasgow education services are focused on."
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here