Peatstack

The Peatstack has been away from the beloved Isle of Lewis for a week or so, and returns to find that the issue of school closures has returned to the news agenda. The schools in question are the handful of S1 & S2 units attached to local primary schools, which, according to some members of the Comhairle, are incapable of adequately delivering the national curriculum. The newly appointed Minister For Education does not agree and can find no reason to support the Comhairle's position on these closures.
One example of this supposed educational deficit quoted in the press came from a long standing local councillor. She thinks that what our 11, 12 &13 year-old children are missing out on in being a part of these rural senior schools rather than going to the Nicolson Institute straight from P7, is lessons in such important areas as business studies.
As a parent with a child currently attending one of the threatened schools, I very strongly disagree with the Comhairle and feel very relaxed about my child missing out on a session of business studies every week in favour of the many superior educational, social and community benefits these schools deliver.
Before turning to those educational benefits in more detail, I think the debate on this issue should be as holistic a debate as possible, including in the equation all aspects of the economic and social impact of the closure of these schools on local communities.
The Peatstack feels very strongly that apart from there being no universally accepted or sustained educational reason for these closures, attacks on these schools are nothing short of an outright attack on community cohesion, cultural identity and local democracy. It appears that it is the Comhairle's plan to really deliver on the meaning of the old Gaidhlig name for the Isle of Lewis, and turn this island truly into an island of strangers.
In this closure process we can see how the Comhairle is now actively promoting the rapid centralisation of services and of our island communities into Stornoway, and thus undermining the strength of the villages. Surely these closures will only hasten the drift of families into the greater Stornoway area; will lead to children spending a very much longer time away from home each day in travel; will add to the traffic chaos that is a drive to Stornoway at school opening times, and will undermine the sense of community in the threatened localities.
Into this mix I would like to add to threat to the future of Gaidhlig that these closures represent, and a real sense of a lost opportunity. The Peatstack is a very strong believer in the broad values of Gaidhlig medium education both in terms of the children concerned as a way of supporting and promoting the unique and beautiful language and culture of the Gael. These schools provide a Gaidhlig language bridge between Gaidhlig speaking parents and the education of their children. They are strong parts of our community in a much greater way than simply being another council service. They encourage a sense of place and culture that is still, happily, in The Peatstack's experience, centered on the Gaidhlig language.
And choice is a key word in this debate. With the closure of the Lews School a few years ago, choices in education were slashed in half. And was there any educational benefit to this? No. The children who wanted and suited a more practical route are now in the same place as those with a more academic leaning, and it is not clear that any or all of these children have in anyway benefited by this change. And that's because it came as the result of a financial rather than an educational decision. We are at that same point again, let's make the right decision this time.
As to the educational benefits of these small secondary units, there are many. Far from being unable to deliver on the full range of educational and curriculum requirements, The Peatstack maintains that these units deliver an enhanced education that far exceeds minimum requirements, and which is diverse and rich not narrow and under-resourced.
The children (in most cases, of course there are exceptions as there are in any educational system) receive their educational in an environment that engenders self-esteem and security; that has a back-drop of continuity and is in-touch with strong communities and culture; that encourages strong friendships and parental involvement. In short, the children of these schools have an education that greatly enhances their ability to engage with the issues and subjects of the curriculum and the challenges of adult life - that will give them a rooted sense of self and that they will use when they study the great debates of war, peace, love, history, geography, law, the arts, and yes, I'm sure business as well.
The end result will be a further institutional undermining of strength in our rural, village communities and their vestige cultures and language. This will happen for financial reasons not for educational gain, and with so many of these decisions that our weak leaders decree, will be another small steep in our ceaseless march into a future in which we will have secured only our own small insignificant slice of global, uniform culture, our villages (and maybe our islands) bereft of people, and one central town that will be Anywhere Scotland. I don't think our children will thank us for that, but maybe we will get a slap on the back from a generation of faceless, Comhairle accountants and the share holders who set to benefit from PPPs in education.