A new project fromScotland’s biggest teaching union aims to help teachers to tackle child poverty.
The EIS’PactProject, funded by the Scottish government, is a responseto “the serious concerns of teachers about the growing levels of dire poverty amongst our children and young people”, the union says.
Schools cannotsolve poverty, says the EIS, “but teachers want to do more to - and this project aims to support the profession to do that”.
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The project, which startsfrom the premise that poverty is a violation of human rights, will involvea professional learning programme for teachers based on local and international research and best practice.
Tackling child poverty
Building on and the “cost of the school day”work already being done by , the government and local authorities, the programme is designed to raise awareness of what can be done in schoolsto minimise the effects of poverty.
The Pactproject will embark on a pilot schemein three local authority areas in early 2020, followed by a Scotland-wide rollout later in the year.
The EIS said in statement: “This groundbreaking project explicitly recognises the impacts of both visible and hidden poverty, examines the many ‘faces’ of poverty in urban, rural and island areas, and supports schools and teachers in developing and soundly implementing relevant policies, in creating strongly inclusive school cultures that minimise poverty-related stigma, and adopting teaching approaches which are known to benefit children and young people from less affluent backgrounds.”
EIS assistant secretary Andrea Bradley said: “Many teachers in Scotland are aware of the harsh reality of life on and below the breadline for families on low income. They see daily the signs of hunger in the classroom, the struggle to buy clothes and the emotional harm caused by the relentlessness of poverty among too many of the young people that they teach.
“In the interim findings of a survey that the EIS is conducting about the impact of poverty in education, over half of respondents said that the severity of children’s circumstances had worsened in the past 12 months.”
The interimsurvey findings showed, for example, that68 per cent of respondentshad reported increased numbers of children whose clothes were not weatherproof, while30 per centsaid that more children weredropping out of instrumental music lessons because their parents could notafford the tuition fees.
Ms Bradley added: “Against such a bleak backdrop, the Pactprofessional learning offer is designed to enable all teachers in all schools in Scotland to do all that they can to limit the damage that poverty does to children’s experience of education and to their life outcomes thereafter.”
The EIS said child poverty ratesin Scotland were rising and thatrecent research showed that young people from the most deprived communities were three times more likely to die before they are 25 than those from the wealthiest.
The unionwill mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty tomorrow (17October) at 11.45am. It is encouraging membersto join itsgathering at the Poverty Stone in Glasgow’s George Square.
