THE past week has been dominated by fallout from news that Scotland’s schools slipped far down the PISA tables which compare our attainment in maths, science and reading with other countries. These results are Scotland’s worst ever.

We also saw some worrying Curriculum for Excellence results published locally by East Lothian Council, although these came with a major health warning, that they are “experimental” and perhaps tell us very little.

At least we know that in the county Higher results have been improving year on year. Scotland-wide, those pass rates fell this year too.

We once boasted that Scotland had the best education system in the world. Now we have to ask why that is no longer the case. I spend a lot of time in schools and they are full of bright children who want to learn, and dedicated teachers inspiring them to do just that.

The problem is that there are not enough of those teachers, and they do not have the time or resources they need to do their job.

Over the past decade, education budgets have been cut, teacher numbers are down by over 4,000, and schools have fewer support staff too. Class sizes have risen and pupil-teacher ratios worsened.

Here in East Lothian, our schools have been excluded from attainment challenge funding, and next year the Government will claw back taxpayers’ money from the county to spend on schools elsewhere. John Swinney’s next ‘reform’ is to decide the individual budgets of our schools centrally, rather than here in East Lothian.

We need a Government with the courage to stop these cuts. The Scottish Government budget will be unveiled today (Thursday). If they are serious about our children’s education, they will use the Parliament’s powers to stop cuts. Otherwise, their talk of education as a priority is just talk.