Deep cuts to education budgets will hamper efforts to raise Dundee’s youth out of poverty, one of city’s leading teaching figures has told The Courier.
David Baxter, local secretary of the EIS teaching union, said he feared that unless more money can be found, youngsters in the most deprived areas will be robbed of the chance to improve their lives.
One-in-four children in Dundee are now said to be living in poverty, and one-in-three in some of the worst areas of deprivation, where low educational attainment is a serious issue.
Mr Baxter said the key to improving the “life chances” of those youngsters was “resourcing education” to provide more teachers, lower class sizes to boost attainment.
Nationally, however, councils have been forced to consider tens of millions of pounds worth of cuts to budgets including that for education.
Dundee City Council is also fighting to address a crippling teacher shortage that has left many specialist posts empty.
Education convener Stewart Hunter has pledged to meet those challenges head-on with a number of innovative schemes in play, but Mr Baxter believes it will still come down to cash.
“We have a frankly frightening number of kids in Dundee living in poverty and unfortunately that reduces their life chances,” said Mr Baxter, who led calls for a ballot on industrial action over teacher salaries at the teaching union’s AGM in Perth recently.
“It is vital that we reduce that inequality by adequately resourcing education or tackling the root causes of poverty.”
The union official said councils across the country would have to think creatively if additional funds cannot be secured from the Scottish Government.
“We put forward a motion for a new pay deal at the AGM because we believe teachers are being underpaid and that this is hampering efforts to attract new teachers and find supply teachers.
“Teachers are being forced to deal with larger class sizes and an increase in paperwork and bureaucracy, marking and report reading.”