EDUCATION, education, education… Whether its Tony Blair or Nicola Sturgeon, politicians often ask us to judge them on their record regarding this most vital of services provided by local authorities.

After being elected last May, and as a former teacher, I looked forward to joining the decision-making process in Glasgow and maybe bringing an experienced voice to the table.

Never did I think I would sit as one of your councillors on an authority about to take not just an axe but a machete to our city’s education budget.

That, if we are to believe the various leaks and rumours, is what is about to take place at the council’s budget meeting this month.

We know that the SNP/Green administration in Glasgow has been told, funnily enough by the SNP/Green administration in Edinburgh, to find more than £60 million of savings from its budget in 2023/24. This eye-watering number of cuts will fall across most services and as education has the biggest expenditure; we can be sure the machete will fall hardest and deepest there.

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The sort of cuts being rumoured include the loss of more than 800 teachers as well as the shortening of the school week to 22.5 hours, and that is in addition to further cuts to school resource budgets.

I met recently with the EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland) which represents most teachers in Glasgow and following on from that I emailed all other councillors offering a further meeting with the EIS to help inform them during the decision-making process.

Depressingly, within the hour, I had received a reply from one SNP councillor bringing the ever-constructive “Scotland needs independence etc…” That really helps schools right now!

The EIS says that on top of the £10m that was taken out last year any further cuts, let alone ones of the magnitude proposed at this time, will see schools in Glasgow just unable to provide the support required by its young people; a group already heavily affected by the pandemic.

The truncation of the school week would equate to 97.5 hours fewer each year for every primary pupil, which adds up to 682.5 hours over their primary career.

This will have a huge effect on their chances of meeting national standards and blow any chance of reducing the poverty related attainment gap. All this without even looking at the effect on working parents.

Significantly, the EIS says that “It will see Glasgow pupils significantly disadvantaged against pupils in other areas of Scotland”.

I know that my political opponents will try to spin the usual rhetoric about the “big bad Tories” but I’d like to remind them of a few facts.

The block grant available to the SNP-Green government from the UK Government is at the highest level on record.

The level of spending for each person in Scotland as a result of being part of the United Kingdom has also reached a record £2184 per person.

And the SNP-Green government underspent their most recent budget by £2 BILLION, analysis by the neutral Audit Scotland concluded.

The SNP-Green councillors have no excuse for planning these cuts and damaging our children’s future in this city and they cannot pass the buck, their usual tactic.

Nicola Sturgeon famously told us to judge her on her record on education.

As a former teacher, I’ll mark her report card: Failed miserably.