News / Wills to challenge rural school moratorium
COUNCILLORS in Shetland will be asked to ignore the Scottish government’s moratorium on school closures when the new education and families committee meets for the first time on Wednesday.
Committee member Jonathan Wills intends to call on his colleagues to go against education officials’ recommendation to delay the consultation on closing Olnafirth primary school in Voe until August 2012.
Two weeks ago Scottish education secretary Michael Russell asked local authorities to put on hold any plans to shut rural schools for 12 months while he sets up a commission to look into legislation designed to presume against closure.
On Monday local government umbrella body CoSLA rejected the government’s moratorium, saying that it undermined councils, but asked that they be involved in the commission.
On Tuesday Argyll & Bute Council was the first council to withdraw plans to close schools in line with the moratorium, but has called for the government to invest more money in education if they want to retain small schools.
Dr Wills said on Tuesday that he would be moving for the education and families committee to follow CoSLA’s line on the issue.
“I will be moving that we can’t afford to run these small schools and should go ahead with the consultation on Olnafirth primary school,” the Lerwick South councillor said.
He added that he would go further and move that the council adopt a plan to have a primary school system based on having at least 100 pupils in each school, apart from those on islands not connected by fixed link to the mainland.
Committee chairman Betty Fullerton said that it would be up to the committee to decide, but she believed that it would be within the committee’s remit to go ahead with the consultation.
If they did vote that way, she added, the matter would be referred to the new executive committee, which meets for the first time on 4 July.
Education officers say that closing Olnafirth school could save the council £114,193 if the children are transferred to Lunnasting primary, £81,356 if they go to Brae and £65,189 if they attend Mossbank.
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