Samantha Levine Blog 4

Samantha Levine 9/22/09 11:14pm due: 9/25/09

Samantha Levine
9/25/09
Current Event Four

On Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 in The Times, based in London, UK, James Glossop wrote the article Primary Class Sizes to be reduced to 25. This article is about how the SNP plans for today’s announcement that it is to legislate for smaller classes in Scotland. The Education Secretary, Fiona Hyslop is going to inform the people of the plans to reduce the legal limit for class sized in a few years from thirty to twenty-five students per teacher. Although this might sound good there are some barriers which must be overcome before the Scottish government can confirm the details of Ms. Hyslop’s announcement. Many people and local authorities such as Glasgow have provided some negative feedback to the minimization to the classroom sizes. The two hurdles that were stated are that many find it “unworkable because of financial constraints” and because last year the “Court of Session ruled that councils cannot turn down a parent’s request for their child to attend a school by claiming the class is full unless it contains 30 pupils”.

Many people such as Margaret Smith, for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, believe that if the announcement only deals with a reduction from thirty to twenty-five “then this is a complete admission of defeat on the SNP’s flagship education policy”. Ms. Smith also feels that the SNP have failed to deliver the legislation, the funding or the teachers for councils to reduce class sizes in Scotland to 18”. On the other hand people like Greg Dempster, a general secretary of the AHDS union, which represents primary school leaders in Scotland, believe that the union supporting a reduction in class sizes and altering the legislation should not be viewed as “abandoning the pledge” because if this were to occur then it would allow local authorities to employ it in schools. Hopefully this will be resolved and parents and others will not fear classrooms being smaller and view it as something positive.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6845187.ece