Local Conservative candidate for Cunninghame North and the West Scotland region has claimed that many pupils from poorer backgrounds are slipping through the funding net leading to concerns that the SNP are not doing enough to close the attainment gap.
The Scottish Government recently announced a £100m Attainment Challenge Fund to be allocated to the seven most deprived local authorities and an additional 57 deprived schools in fourteen other council areas.
But Mr Greene told press that figures from the current Scottish Index for Multiple Deprivation study reveal that the majority of children living in poverty go to school in areas not categorised as deprived. The statistics from Dr Jim McCormick from the Social Security Advisory Committee show that only 40 per cent go to school in deprived areas.
He is challenging the SNP on why the majority of pupils from poorer backgrounds will not receive the allocated funding and teacher support for schools.
In a statement, he said "I welcome any initiative aimed at helping poorer students, but it is clear that evidence produced by experts confirms that a very substantial number of deprived pupils do not, in fact, attend schools in deprived areas. This policy only targets selected schools and local authorities registering a high deprivation index. A much better policy would be to target the available funds to follow the individual pupil. The SNP approach is failing to target support to all deprived pupils in Scotland who do not attend schools in deprived areas."
He concluded "This is yet another deeply worrying statistic which proves the SNP just isn’t doing enough to close the attainment gap or to increase opportunity among Scotland’s least privileged. This is one of the major education challenges of the 21st century, and barely a month goes by that proves the SNP is not up to the task. I urge them to review their policy on this."