Children protest over cuts to project for vulnerable pupils

Published on Friday 29 May 2009 09:57

DOZENS of schoolchildren staged a walk-out in protest at proposals to cut funding for a project designed to support vulnerable pupils.

Around 40 children from Castlebrae Community High School waved banners, painted their faces, and chanted outside the school in protest at funding cuts to the Instep Project, which provides extra learning and social support to the school.

They had hoped to protest outside the City Chambers, where councillors were debating the future of the programme, but after teachers spoke to them, decided to protest at the school gates.

The project, which began in 1993, has five members of staff and has helped more than 4,000 pupils of all ages. They introduce babies to books, make home visits to truants and help older pupils with tutoring, training, university applications and job hunting.

The scheme receives extra funding on top of the school's budget, but that funding was axed at yesterday's full council meeting.

The council says that Castlebrae should pay for the work from its own budget, as happens at other schools in the city, but Instep's supporters say it helps pupils beat the odds of growing up in a particularly deprived area.

Protester Megan Dodds, 14, said: "Our school wouldn't be the same without Instep. This keeps our school going."

Her aunt, Helen McIntyre, 29, a former Instep pupil herself, said: "It makes a really, really big difference to the kids.

"I was here the first year Instep opened and my mum was in a wheelchair and I wanted to stay home with her all the time. The guy who ran Instep used to come and get me and take me back to school, and I'm glad he did."

While the funding has now been withdrawn, an amendment was also approved requesting that a report be compiled outlining the effects the cut will have.

Pentland's Labour councillor Ricky Henderson said: "The council had no choice but to approve these cuts as they were already identified in the council budget several months ago.

"The amendment is essentially a poor compromise which will allow the administration to fudge the issue, and then work their way through the service implications when the report comes back.

"Instep can quite rightly claim to be making a difference, yet it is under threat."

Loudly heckled from the public galleries at yesterday's meeting, education leader Marilyne MacLaren said: "Instep is a very expensive project and I would say we are not getting value for money. If I genuinely thought this service had made a big difference then I would not be taking it away."