At any other time the publication of poor exam results would grab the nation’s attention, hands would be wrung and calls for the education minister’s head would be deafening.

But thanks to the current financial turmoil that Scotland — and the rest of the world — is experiencing, there was barely a murmur when the annual league tables came out last week.

During first minister’s questions on Thursday the state of the economy dominated proceedings and the fact that the already stark gap between good and bad schools has grown in the first year and a half of SNP government was never mentioned.

As Alex Salmond put together a power point presentation to try to convince the English bosses of Lloyds TSB to base the headquarters of their new mega-bank in Scotland, it’s probably safe to say that Standard and Higher grades were not uppermost in his mind. But they should have been.

When only 15% of state-school children in Glasgow and 25% in Edinburgh manage to pass three Highers, the recruitment potential of this country must look pretty unimpressive to the international banking fraternity.

The educational excellence for which Scotland was once famous might have produced first-rate financiers for previous eras but our schools are now out performed by nearly all our European neighbours and our children will struggle to compete.

Only those educated in East Renfrewshire, where 49% of pupils gained three or more Highers, or within the private sector (almost 100%) are guaranteed some degree of exam success. For the rest it is a lottery.

The gulf between attainment in the best and worst Scottish schools has stretched to 32 points in the last year, up from 28 in 2006/07. After 16 months in power, the nationalists can no longer blame these figures on generations of Labour mismanagement and complacency.

But instead of looking at the link between dismal results and social deprivation and deciding it’s shameful and must be addressed as a matter of urgency, what do nationalist politicians do? They gloat. “Scotland has a learning system and culture of which we can be proud,” said Fiona Hyslop, the education minister, last week. “Our participation, research capacity, teacher education and curriculum developments are quite rightly regarded as world-class.”

Either she hasn’t seen the exam results or, like her predecessors, she has chosen to gloss over the failures because dealing with them requires introducing radical measures, for which she lacks the political courage.

Scottish schools are now trailing behind those in England, where Blairite reforms are beginning to have an impact. A study by James Stanfield of the University of Newcastle for the Policy Institute in Edinburgh found that in Scotland in 2006/07 the number of S4 pupils achieving five good grades fell to 39.2% from 43.8%. In England, there was a rise, from 45.3% to 45.7%.

Investment in education can’t be used as an excuse because funding per pupil in Scotland has increased by 93% since devolution, more than in England.

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