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  • Young People

    Parliamentary Bureau Motion: S2M-943

    26/02/2004 - Official Report

    Link to The Scottish Parliament Official Document.

    Excerpts related rural primary school closures from the debate on motion S2M-943, in the name of Peter Peacock, on a better deal for young people, and on two amendments to that motion. Please refer to the link above for the full debate if required (times are quoted for this purpose).

    11:18

    Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con): Yesterday, the First Minister made a statement in the chamber on population change. I welcome much of what he said, but it related almost exclusively to the fact that Scotland's overall population is falling. What he did not address - we need to address this issue in future - is the fact that there is population change within Scotland.

    We know that for hundreds of years there has been a drift from rural areas into towns and that, in many ways, that drift continues today. The population drift is more obvious in certain parts of Scotland and perhaps less obvious in areas such as Aberdeen and the north-east, where it is masked by the fact that there is a high rural population. However, the residents are often commuters - people who use the rural areas as dormitories - and the people who are born and brought up in the areas still tend to drift away as ever they did.

    The problems that cause that population drift are ...

    The most obvious pressure in rural areas in the north-east - and, my colleagues tell me, in other areas too - is on small primary schools. That is largely as a result of funding problems. Some will argue that small rural schools with composite classes are an inappropriate way of educating young people in their early years. However, the evidence is plain: some of the finest schools in the country, with some of the best results at primary level, are small schools with one, two or perhaps three teachers.

    I will give an example from Angus of the pressure that such schools are under. Angus Council, largely for financial reasons, has had to consider centralising primary school education. Small schools such as St Vigeans Primary School, which has been closed already, the Panmure school, which is currently under threat, and Stracathro Primary School, which has been threatened before and may be threatened again in the near future, are perfect examples of schools in which small numbers of pupils and small numbers of teachers succeed in producing education of a very high quality. Such schools are characterised by the fact that more than half the pupils are there as a result of placing requests. The quality of the education drew the pupils to those schools, because their parents were impressed with the schools' records.

    From what I have heard from councillors, I understand that councils such as Aberdeenshire Council may be forced to take similar action to Angus, simply because of necessary economies.

    Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP) rose-

    Alex Johnstone: I need to get on; I am sorry. I hope that Brian Adam will have the chance to speak later.

    The schools are being put under pressure because of funding difficulties, for which I blame, to a significant extent, the underfunding of local authorities by the Scottish Executive. However, we have an opportunity here, and that is why I am very keen to support the amendment in the name of my colleague Lord James Douglas-Hamilton. Conservative education policy has often made a great deal of sense in the way in which it could be applied in the major cities; too often, however, that policy has fallen down in rural areas where choice is extremely limited or, in fact, non-existent. However, the schools passport policy is very different. It gives parents an opportunity to retain choice and to retain local schools in a way that no policy offered by any other party in this Parliament can. Our policy gives parents the opportunity to guarantee that, if they choose to place their child in a particular school, the funding will follow the child. Unless we adopt that policy, or one very like it, many of our rural primary schools will be threatened with closure. I would not be able to accept that if we want rural areas to maintain their populations.

    It gives me great pleasure to support enthusiastically the amendment in the name of Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

    11:42

    Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): We have had a wide-ranging debate today and, with the exception of the Conservative's flagship policy on education, it has been broadly consensual.

    Alex Johnstone rightly showed considerable concern about young people in rural communities who might be denied the opportunity to have their education as locally as possible. However, I say to him that, in the context of the overall Conservative education policy, he might want to look at public-private partnerships. One of the most significant drivers of school closures in rural areas has been the need to aggregate schools in order to make public-private partnerships stack up. That is particularly true in Aberdeenshire, to which he referred earlier. The passport policy will not address that situation.

    Last Updated : 07 August 2004