MORE school leavers across West Dunbartonshire are moving on to positive destinations according to new figures from the Scottish government.

In 2015-16, 92.2 per cent of school leavers went onto positive destinations after leaving school – an increase of 2.3 per cent in the past year. The figures also showed that 40 per cent of the 949 leavers went into higher education, whilst 20 per cent went into employment in 2015-16.

Gil Paterson MSP said: “The Scottish Government is committed to continually improving standards in our schools and ensuring that young people have opportunities to go on to work, education or training and make the best start in adult life.

“Our schools across Clydebank and West Dunbartonshire are benefitting from this commitment from the Scottish Government and are making excellent progress in helping our young people have the best chances in life – and additional spending in the budget and the funding to close the attainment gap will go further still to helping more young people from the area find positive destinations after leaving school.

“I’m delighted to see 92.2 per cent of school leavers in West Dunbartonshire now going to positive destinations such as employment, training, university or college after leaving school. This shows the continued progress the Scottish Government is making to give young people the best start in life.”

Councillor John Mooney, depute chair of Education Grievance and Disciplinary Committee, added: "This is an excellent performance, the best in four years. This results from a real partnership approach and targeting careers events and activities which interest our young people."

Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie countered this, pointing to other issues across Scotland. She said: “Any improvement is welcome but when you look beyond the headlines there are massive challenges for schools across Scotland. These figures show that pupils from the poorest backgrounds are more than three times as likely to not be in education, training or employment after school compared to the richest pupils.

“We need to use the new powers of the parliament to close the the gap between the richest and the poorest in our classrooms, instead the SNP has cut £1.5 million from local councils since 2011.

“Labour believes that together, we’re stronger so we should use the new tax powers to ask the richest to pay a little more to invest in our schools, rather than the SNP’s plan to freeze income tax for the top 15 per cent.”