Take a step back, SIC!
The closure of rural schools is a very emotive issue depending on where you live; if you have bairns in a school involved, or pondering if the school will be there when smaller or planned children come of age to attend.
To those who have no children involved, live in any affected area or are just focused on the alleged savings, here are some few facts and comments to widen the debate beyond pure SIC educational savings, alleged or otherwise:
The claim that a larger or centralised school provides a better education is pure fantasy. There are countless examples of larger/centralised schools failing far more often than smaller local schools.
Bullying and anti-social behaviour has a much greater breeding ground and is less containable in larger schools.
Many rural areas with good quality local schools that were closed find their shop or other local facilities gradually fade away, as younger or working folk find living in a once thriving community no longer viable.
Land, house prices, planning issues all kick in as many folk try to move closer to the centralised location causing all sorts of problems.
Further SIC cuts in non-educational services compound the problems causing “destructive centralising madness”; or as I prefer to call it, socio-economic terrorism.
Then the winter comes with many rural roads getting no snow clearing or gritting, and folk being unable to get to their centralised work, while all those bairns are trapped at the new mega centralised school in Lerwick.
Take a step back, SIC and focus on what is really important to a sustainable future!
Let’s have a real debate on where Shetland needs to be in ten or 20 years, and stop the cuts until there has been some civilised and joined-up debate on all our futures.
On the basis that it’s not fair to critise without putting forward ideas, I offer just a couple of ideas:-
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- Stop the school closures, stop the new Lerwick High School saving £50 – 60 million, and expand the good rural secondary’s which all have had lots of well invested money in recent years;
- develop home working for SIC employees that do not need to drive into an overcrowded office in a parking nightmare that is Lerwick. This alone would redress the destruction to the viability of rural areas dished out by the SIC over the last few years.
- introduce a policy that measures the real long term benefits by relaxing some high cost regulatory issues, planning etc.
- fight stupid EU and Westminster rules that make sense in Birmingham, Berlin and Barcelona but not in Burra or Bigton.
The SIC and Shetland Enterprise’s development funds focus on businesses based in Lerwick, and that is not helping rural development. Lerwick is fast becoming an urban area sucking in the life breath out of rural Shetland.
Vic Thomas
Clousta
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