SCOTLAND’S schools are facing a major crisis and must be given the same priority as health and the economy as the country emerges from lockdown, former first minister Lord McConnell has said.

He warned children from disadvantaged backgrounds will have fallen further behind in the three months since schools closed, and he called for a national plan of action to be drawn up.

Without such efforts, he said he fears there will be another generation of lost youngsters similar to the situation in the 1980s when Scotland struggled following the collapse of the traditional manufacturing sector.

McConnell said: “There was a generation created in the 1980s, failed by the economy and education, and ultimately by government, most of whom found it hard to keep down a proper job, many became addicts.

“Their problems were passed on to the next generation, and the next generation, and their families. It had a massive impact on our society and on their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. We must not allow this to happen again.”

The former Labour leader, who spent 10 years working as a high school teacher before entering full-time politics, recalled: “I taught mathematics in the 1980s when a whole generation was written off as Scotland’s industry collapsed and the economy changed. And we are still living with the consequences of that today.

“And we are in danger of creating the same impact again. There is going to be a massive economic crisis, people are going to lose their jobs, and we have already got the situation in health changing our lives, possibly forever.

“On top of that to just leave this generation without anything like a similar effort in education is just not acceptable.”

On action he would take if he was first minister today, he said: “I would make education absolutely central, at least as an equal priority to the economy in coming out of the lockdown.

“I would have a national plan of action that put the 32 local authorities and the Scottish Government in the same place and that mobilised new people to help, new facilities to help, new equipment to help.

“Then I would identify and target those kids that have fallen behind and have an action plan in every school that wasn’t just an action plan to keep teaching going but was an action plan with resources to close the gap that had been created.”