Peatstack

School closures to be justified through a smoke screen of educational benefit - News reaches The PeatStack of a meeting for parents on Tuesday 4 September at 8pm in Back School. The letter comes from our local councillors - Catriona Stewart, Kenneth A Maciver and John A Maciver - urging us to 'engage as we search for the best way forward for Education in our area'.
Attached to the councillors' letter is another from CNES Director of Education, Murdo Macleod, headed 'Review of Educational Provision And The Proposed New 3-18 Curriculum'.
Whilst Murdo Maclean does emphasise in his letter that no decisions have been taken and won't until after consultations with parents and other interested parties have taken place, he refers to 'multiple influences which necessitate such a wide-ranging review of educational provision.'
He states these as being:
- The proposed new 3-18 curriculum and its implications
- The need to release and redirect the financial resources required to fund the proportion of the cost of the Western Isles Schools Projects which falls to the Comhairle.
- The continuing decline in the school rolls
- The generally tightening financial settlements. As rolls fall total funding falls in proportion. Consequently, the operation of a large number fo schools relative to the very limited, and reducing, total roll puts education expenditure excessively beyond the Authority's level of Government Rate Support Funding.
The letter continues with a descriptor of the situation for the new curriculum, but no additional information about the other financial aspects of this proposed closure.
But The PeatStack holds that a decision to combine both of these issues (finance and curriculum development) in one meeting is nothing short of an attempt to dress-up the real financial reasons for the proposed closures in the clothes of an educational benefit.
The PeatStack is very suspicious as to whether a meeting with three councillors and CNES director of education on the new curriculum was already proposed for this coming Tuesday night in Back, or whether this is a sudden and politically expedient adjuctant to a debate on school closures designed to blind or scare the parents and other 'interested parties' into going along with potentially one of the most destructive and ill-informed decisions our local councillors have made in recent years?
There is wide-spread acceptance of the new curriculum and its benefits. But how are these small secondary units incompatible with its aims?
So let's be clear in advance of this meeting - there is absolutley nothing in the so-called 'Curriculum for Excellence' that in anyway suggests the need for a closure of these secondary units, in fact, quite the oppostie.
The new curriculum places an emphasis on education being the foundation stone of confident, expressive adults - its titles include Responsible Citizens, Effective Contributors, Successful Learners, Confident Individuals.
In my blog of yesterday I argue that these are the precise benefits of education in the small secondary units.
The curriculum document also places an emphasis on addressing overcrowding and choice, see my blog of yesterday for a view on that! These closures will reduce parental choice to zero.
And what of the national aspirations of the curriculum - 'Partnerships: between sectors and services, with parents, employers, sport and culture organisations, community.'
These closures will drastically undermine community and parent involvement in secondary level education, will remove children from their communities for their education and undermine the importnant sense of community, culture and place that has for so long been such a unique and important facit of the education offered in the units. In fact, it is clear that the centralisation of secondary education into a single urban school may well run entirely contrary to many of the educational aims of the New Curriculum.
So where is the justification for combining consultation on the new curriculum with consultation on a damaging financial cut?
There is none. Don't be fooled, and The PeatStack here demands that these issues be uncoupled and Tuesday night's meeting be a straight chance for the Comhairle to justify to this community its ill-conceived and damaging financial decisions.
When it comes to finance for education - I thought we elected councillors and other politicians to fight our corner not at the first whiff of a difficulty to back down - why is there, therefore, no mention in their weak letter of what they are planning to do to campaign for a better and increased financial settlement with central government that realistically acknoweldges the extra costs of education in remote areas with small populations and works to ensure the long term viability of remote communities? Why are no alternative financial measures being presented in equal detail? Is this the only solution to the suggested financial difficulties, I doubt it.
See you on Tuesday. This is our chance to really let politicans and bureaucrats alike know what we as parents feel about this damaging proposal, and good luck and solidarity to the parents and communities in Bayble, Daliburgh, Sgoil nan Loch, Paible, Shawbost and Lionel who are likewise confronted with this disfiguring crime against their community.