News / AHS funding decision next month
SCOTTISH education secretary Mike Russell has said a decision will be made on the government funding a new Anderson High School at Lerwick’s Lower Staney Hill next month.
Russell was speaking during a 24 hour visit to Shetland during a week of high dudgeon in local education circles, as councillors prepare to debate the end of the islands’ popular junior high school system and closing primary schools on Wednesday.
Also this week the government’s shake up of further education prompted the NAFC Marine Centre to recall its director David Gray from his supplementary duty of running Shetland College.
Gales foiled the secretary’s hope of visiting Fair Isle primary school – “the most remote school in Scotland” – but a swiftly rearranged schedule saw him pop in to Bressay and Whiteness primaries and receive a guided tour of Shetland Museum and Archives by local pupils.
“I was very impressed with what I saw: high quality teachers in good buildings teaching pupils who want to learn,” he said.
He also met his old acquaintance Valerie Nicolson who gave him a tour of the Anderson High School she runs. Russell said he recognised there was a case for a new Anderson High School to be in Lerwick, but he could offer no guarantee that funding would be forthcoming, pointing out that “money is very tight”.
“I am looking at the applications for the next round of Scottish Schools for the Future and I hope to make that decision before the end of September,” he stated on BBC Radio Shetland.
As for closing schools, he said that was a decision for the local council who would have to follow due legal process, which requires consulting with parents, pupils and communities.
He also made it clear he thought the council received enough to run its schools, even though the authority regular dips into its reserves to do so. “I don’t accept that the money the council receives is not adequate. It is adequate to provide education here,” he insisted.
There is currently a moratorium on school closures while the Commission for Rural Education he set up last year deliberates. Its findings will not be known until after November pending the outcome of a judicial review into his decision to block the closure of four western isles schools.
He thinks that when it does report it will come up with “some positive, helpful next steps”.
As to fears that his plans to create regional boards in charge of further education will take control of Shetland College out of local hands, he suggested nothing could be further from the truth.
Shetland and Orkney are the only colleges in Scotland controlled by the local authority, and he said that was system with which he had some sympathy.
He wants to see colleges geared more towards making people employable, and he wants to see more openness, accountability and responsiveness to local people, staff and students.
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