BBC Scotland's education correspondent Ken Macdonald reports

Scotland's primary schools are well on the way to hitting the government's performance targets but secondaries are facing an uphill struggle in some areas.

The Scottish Executive is due to release the full figures, council by council, next week.

Ministers say the targets will help improve pupil performance.

Targets set

Scotland's schools were set performance targets last year and have until 2001 to reach them.

After the first year, primary schools are nearly half-way to hitting targets on reading.

With two years to go, primaries are more than a third of the way to achieving their aims in writing and maths.

But secondary schools have a steeper task facing them.

In the early years, reading is well on the way to the target, although writing has a little further to go.

But things are looking grim for maths, where 42% of pupils reached the required standard last year. This year, there has been no progress at all towards the 55% target.

Absence rates

Among older pupils, Standard Grade pass rates are rising but Highers are struggling to achieve lift-off.

Absence rates are proving hard to crack too. In some ways, schools and the executive can't win.

If targets aren't hit, that'll be portrayed as failure. If they are, critics will say the targets have been set too low.