Schools take biggest hit

Have you read this article in the Scotsman?

THE parents are on the march. Tomorrow it is Linwood, Renfrewshire. The local council is attempting to save £750,000 a year by no longer bussing in those children at the local St Benedict's school who live within a three- miles radius.

On Tuesday, it is Edinburgh. As many as 500 parents are expected to gather outside City Chambers over the widespread cutbacks which are being imposed on their primary and secondary schools.

Soon it will be all over Scotland. While vague talk of cutbacks fills the political chambers at Holyrood and Westminster, schools are already feeling the impact. No other public service has quite the same potential as education to cause a backlash from people on the front line. No other public service user can quite drum up the same level of indignant fury as a parent who feels their child is getting a raw deal.

I wonder how many parents will choose to HE their children as a result of school cutbacks?

The trouble is that far too many parents go round with a "I pay my taxes, so I expect good service" mentality and believe that 'free' education is a God given right. A significant proportion of these parents are reluctant to buy educational resources for their children because they believe that schools should provide an A1 education.

Mass demonstrations by parents who send their children to school will eclipse any demonstrations by the HE community.



I remember all the education cutbacks back in the 1980s and that did absolutely diddlysquat towards increasing HE. I suspect the lack of awareness of HE amongst the general public back then was a contributory factor. What I have never understood was why the Tory government failed to tell the electorate about HE and that they should go ahead and HE if they weren't happy with state school education.

Too right.



The state school lobby is far more powerful than the HE lobby.



Plenty of people are angry and bitter today about Maggie Thatcher abolishing school milk.

I expect the situation is more intense with parents of children with AS. I have encountered lots, and I mean lots, of fuming and bitter parents who go round griping about their children's problems at school amongst my travels in the AS community. The very worst are those who take any suggestion of HE as an insult because they consider state education as a right.



My son attended two primary schools that still provided milk at breaktime but he didn't drink it.

That's an astute observation. I endured the education cutbacks of the Thatcher era but HE was unheard of. The failure of the Tory government to even inform the public that HE is legal is something I cannot comprehend in an era when the emphasis was on self reliance and getting off your backside rather than expecting the state to provide for you on a plate. The result of this silence is that I don't trust the Tories one iota when it comes to the rights of families to HE their children.



I can pretty much second this. What really saddens me are parents who force their children to go to school just for GCSEs. I tell them that it is possible to take GCSEs as an external candidate and that my son got into college without any GCSEs but they won't take it on board.

Have you ever seen the demonstrations and campaigns by parents whenever a local authority decides to close down a school because there is an insufficient number of children attending?



I share the same feeling. I run into more than enough people who shriek "Ugh what about GCSEs. How's he going to get a job without them?" and end up telling them that he wants to study what interests him and will be useful for a future career.