Rural schools

With the consultation over large number of schools in the Western Isles, I have been asked by a number of parents just how they should fight the proposed closures.

I must say that I was brutally realistic with them about their options, and possible opportunities, given how the strategy is going to pan out. All other things being equal.

The news that the Government has approved the closure of an Ayrshire rural primary school seems to fly in the face of the all the promises the SNP made at the last election.

The Herald headline was shockingly scaremongering:

Nats pave the way for cull on rural schools

But the previous claims by the MSP that no primary schools would close is as false as the claims by Calum MacDonald and Alasdair Morrison that communities would have a right of veto over wind farm applications.

Assuming (and this a fairly big assumption) that the Comhairle consultation has been properly conducted, then the schools will close and the overall educational strategy will proceed.

Such is realpolitik, where educational aspirations collide with educational constraints, and are battered by financial constraints.

Painful as this may be, I think that the Government are correct; as are the Comhairle in their plans; albeit that both have found themselves in the right place for some of the wrong reasons.

Educational provision in the islands will change dramatically - it is going to have to change dramatically - and electoral promises are going to be cast aside. The fallout locally and nationally will take some time to be determined.