03 October 2003
A Scottish Executive plan to scrap the publication of national school league tables has caused a furore, with parents complaining they will be deprived of information about the performance of individual schools.
Peter Peacock, the Scottish education minister, said: 'League tables owe their origins to a time past when the political currency was about competition between schools. I believe in universal excellence in schools and we should not require to have a league table to try to choose a school.'
The need for an alternative to national league tables was first raised in the Labour-Liberal Democrat partnership agreement drawn up after the Scottish Parliament election in May.
It committed the Executive to promoting the improved assessment of individual schools' progress 'as a better measure than national league tables'.
The recently appointed Scottish information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, claimed that restricting access to the information would be in breach of the government's own legislation on freedom of information.
PFoct2003
