News / Secondary school changes to be postponed
PLANS to review secondary education in rural Shetland look set to be placed on the back burner for the next two years at least.
Councillors at Tuesday’s Shetland Islands Council’s education and families committee meeting are set to back a proposal to postpone consultations on closing or cutting back classes at the islands’ five junior high school until 2017.
The move follows the “overwhelming opposition” to proposals to either close or discontinue S4 classes at Mid Yell and Whalsay junior highs.
Children’s services director Helen Budge has recommended that the council abandon its current consultation into these two schools, as well as any immediate plans for the junior highs in Aith, Sandwick and Baltasound.
In her report to Tuesday’s meeting Budge said the education strategy behind the proposals “remains valid”, but acknowledged that it has “almost nil” support.
She added that it would be a waste of staff time to consult on proposals that were unlikely to succeed.
She does suggest that the consultations could be revisited in 2017, when a new high school has been built in Lerwick and a Shetland Learning Partnership to integrate secondary and tertiary education has been completed.
Councillors showed their reluctance to close schools in the face of huge community resistance in November, when they threw out plans to close Urafirth and North Roe primaries, and abandoned plans to hold further consultations on the primary schools in Sandness and Burravoe.
The recent consultation into Mid Yell junior high school received 382 responses and the Whalsay consultation received 350 responses, which were in “overwhelming opposition” to the proposals for change, Budge said.
The SIC’s children’s services department has been told to cut its spending by £4.7 million between 2014 and 2017, with next year’s savings target set at £1.5 million.
Campaigners opposing any changes to the junior high school set up in Shetland have privately welcomed the proposal to postpone consultation until 2017.
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