School closures - will this ever end?
Few pupils. Soaring costs. Rationalisation.
It was all supposed to start with the secondary schools, which would lead the way for the primary schools to be rationalised.
This was working quite well, until Councillors got involved and decided to forget strategic vision for the islands and concentrated on getting re-elected.
The holes in the budgets are getting bigger - much, much bigger - and the indecision is only delaying and exacerbating the size of the problems that need to be resolved.
I am told that at least 19 of the 38 primaries will be recommended for closure, and that it is expected that the vast majority will close in this round, with any that are 'saved' being reconsidered in not more that five years.
The full extent of the problems in providing education will become apparent when the school rolls for 2008/09 are published by the Comhairle.
Will the Scottish Government set in to delay closure of small primaries?
Does that matter in the long run? No.
With insufficient pupils to support the education system, how can the schools stay open? How long before they all go they way of multitude of old derelict schools spread across the islands?
How many pupils were in your class when you started school? And how many were in the same school with your children - if you have any?
This is why Cllr Angus McCormack is right to raise the fundamental questions about the provision of education in the islands, and particularly the trade off between education and other alternatives in the capital (and revenue) programs of the Council for the coming years.
I don't entirely agree with Cllr McCormack (but I think he is less wrong than most of the others!) but he is prepared to raise the issues that the rest want to see ignored or brushed under the carpet and he deserves credit for that.
Education above all else? Or are thee other equally/more meritorious options for the islands?
It was all supposed to start with the secondary schools, which would lead the way for the primary schools to be rationalised.
This was working quite well, until Councillors got involved and decided to forget strategic vision for the islands and concentrated on getting re-elected.
The holes in the budgets are getting bigger - much, much bigger - and the indecision is only delaying and exacerbating the size of the problems that need to be resolved.
I am told that at least 19 of the 38 primaries will be recommended for closure, and that it is expected that the vast majority will close in this round, with any that are 'saved' being reconsidered in not more that five years.
The full extent of the problems in providing education will become apparent when the school rolls for 2008/09 are published by the Comhairle.
Will the Scottish Government set in to delay closure of small primaries?
Does that matter in the long run? No.
With insufficient pupils to support the education system, how can the schools stay open? How long before they all go they way of multitude of old derelict schools spread across the islands?
How many pupils were in your class when you started school? And how many were in the same school with your children - if you have any?
This is why Cllr Angus McCormack is right to raise the fundamental questions about the provision of education in the islands, and particularly the trade off between education and other alternatives in the capital (and revenue) programs of the Council for the coming years.
I don't entirely agree with Cllr McCormack (but I think he is less wrong than most of the others!) but he is prepared to raise the issues that the rest want to see ignored or brushed under the carpet and he deserves credit for that.
Education above all else? Or are thee other equally/more meritorious options for the islands?
3 comments:
this is a disgrace
What a mess - the council look more and more ridiculous and quite frankly incompetent. The facts of the matter should have been made public earlier, although quite clearly their is no public confidence in what councillors tell us.
"...until Councillors got involved and decided to forget strategic vision for the islands and concentrated on getting re-elected."
Who elected them? We get the council we deserve.
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