Gina Davidson: Big Society falls down on schools

Published on Wednesday 8 September 2010 15:36

THERE are few subjects which get people more politicised than that of education.

It's long been ingrained in the Scottish psyche that getting a good education is key to a good life, and even getting the most basic of learning is a human right. This is why there's always such an uproar when schools are closed.

Once you've been through the emotional upheaval of seeing your child start their education at one school, no parent wants to witness their child's attempt to integrate themselves at a new place where the rules and regulations of the classroom - and, more importantly, the playground - are different.

School closures are about more than just moving children from one educational establishment to another. No matter how valid the financial reasons might be for shutting it down, removing a school from a community is akin to taking the defibrillators out of an ambulance.

Four primary schools closed in Edinburgh at the end of June this year and now lie vacant. Edinburgh City Council's plan will no doubt be to sell the buildings, or just demolish and flog the land for some much-needed lucre.

Given the current state of the council's finances that's all understandable, but what if the communities in which these empty schools reside think differently?

Their pleas for clemency over closures may have fallen on deaf ears, although that was before the radical changes offered by Dave Cameron's Big Society were around.

In England there is now an opportunity for parents to set up their own schools. Not private institutions, but normal, government-funded schools, with the cash following the child rather than being doled out by the local schools authority.

None of this applies to Scotland at the moment, although in East Lothian a working group has been set up, which includes headteachers, parents, councillors, unions and council officials, to look at how community-based management of schools might work.

Potentially, many central education responsibilities would be migrated to clusters of community-run schools.

Ultimately these could form themselves into charitable trusts and receive tax breaks, in a similar way that a body like Edinburgh Leisure does at present.

It's all just an idea at the moment, but it's one which is proving attractive to parents who feel their voices are never heard at council level, particularly when it comes to closures.

Already in the Burdiehouse, Southhouse and Murrays area of south Edinburgh - which lost its local school, Burdiehouse Primary, this year - there are attempts being made to ensure the building is not demolished, just in case the school could reopen as part of a community-partnership cluster.

They believe a school is the heart of the community and that without it, the three separate areas which made up the primary's catchment size will become increasingly alienated from one another.

There is also a more pragmatic belief that demolishing millions of pounds worth of building is a waste.

While the whole idea of community-run schools sounds wonderful on paper, the reality is that most parents - especially in areas which are classed as disadvantaged - have neither the time nor the inclination to set up and organise a school on top of working and managing their own lives.

Parents are happy to support schools, join parent councils, raise cash through the PTA - that's their idea of the Big Society. But dealing with the day-to-day stuff of educating youngsters, employing staff, coping with health and safety demands, well, that's what paid professionals are for.

The Big Society and community schools are fine rhetoric. There is an argument that local authorities should not deliver every service that they currently are expected to, especially as the sums no longer add up, but when it comes to education a line surely has to be drawn.

Paying tax is meant to mean that your child gets a decent education, funded and organised through the state. To put the onus back on to parents to sort it out for themselves on a voluntary basis is like asking a pupil on paramedic work experience to restart a patient's heart.

It's all going to end in a mess.

I'm not hacked off

AS a journalist I'd like to own up, here and now, that I have never hacked into someone's phone.

I have such difficulty retrieving my own messages on my old mobile that the idea of being able to listen in on someone else's voicemail is mind- boggling.

I also have no fear that any hacker would want to get into my messages, as they mostly consist of an enraged husband demanding to know why I even bother to have a mobile as it never seems to be on when he's trying to reach me.

Personally, I think it works brilliantly.