Schools face the axe in £3m saving

Published on 29/08/2012 00:00

SHETLAND councillors will today be urged to back controversial proposals to close nearly a third of the islands’ schools over the next four years in a bid to save an estimated £3 million.

Education officials are recommending that five junior secondary schools should be axed together with five primaries. Under the proposals all single-teacher primary schools – apart from those on the remote isles and Bressay – will be shut by 2017.

Should the closure plans be approved at the education and families committee Shetland will be left with only one junior high in Yell and two high schools in Brae and Lerwick in its secondary department estate.

The secondary departments earmarked for closure are Aith Junior High, Skerries school secondary department, Baltasound Junior High, Sandwick Junior High, and Whalsay secondary department,

The primaries facing the axe are Olnafirth, Burravoe, North Roe, Urafirth, and Sandness.

Helen Budge, the council’s director of children’s services, states in a report to the committee: “The proposals will generate the required financial savings, whilst also protecting the capacity of the school estate to deliver the Curriculum for Excellence.”