North-east schools have been singled out as under-performing by a powerful local government watchdog.
The Accounts Commission said in a new report that education authorities in Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City and Moray were not achieving the standard of results that would be expected, given their lower levels of poverty.
It said that pupil attainment across Scotland had been increasing each year since 2010/11, and that the gap between least deprived and most deprived had decreased by 6% in six years.
However, the watchdog warned that the trend “still masks significant variation between individual councils” and that the most deprived pupils were still performing only half as well as the least deprived pupils.
The report said that councils with lower deprivation levels tended to have more children gaining five or more awards at level 5 and 6, and higher overall average tariffs, than councils that have higher deprivation levels.
But it added: “However, some councils – Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City and the Moray councils – might be expected to perform better than they are when their lower levels of deprivation are taken into account.”
Last night, an Aberdeenshire Council spokesman said: “Attainment is a key priority.
“We have a clear focus on young people in deprivation, including Aberdeenshire’s rural and hidden deprivation, which cannot always be captured in such statistics.
“The figures do not reflect Aberdeenshire’s schools variations in leavers at each stage from S4 to S6.
“Our staff, the families and communities of Aberdeenshire will continue to work positively for all young people.”
A Moray Council spokesman said: “Across our schools we work hard to raise the attainment of each young person by knowing them individually and creating a curriculum to meet their needs.
“The attainment figures in the report uses Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation data and does not reflect the rural context of the Moray area.”