GLASGOW City Council are proudly announcing their plans for Private Finance in secondary schools - ie, mortgaging off our education system to the private sector with the sweetener of computers for all schools.
But what they don't proclaim so loudly is that perfectly good schools, some requiring no upgrading at all, are being scrapped. For the most part these schools are on prime development land, North Kelvinside and St Augustine's to name but a few. Does this not beg the question: on what criteria were the closing schools really chosen and just who pulls the strings in Glasgow?
Why does this Private Finance package include the building of two new schools and the extension of others, when the school closure programme, which brought the axe down on seven schools recently, went ahead on the premise that our schools were under-occupied? Is this not something of an anomaly? Increasing capacity to reduce capacity. It all sounds like a giant job-creation scheme, for these new schools and extensions are not needed.
I understand that this public-private partnership initiative is based on a model tried out in Boston, where it now transpires that teaching staff are being made redundant in order to pay off the loans. Is this the road we really want to take our treasured education system down? Who will be the winners in this? Certainly not the children! They have already lost out; bigger class sizes (contrary to what the government promised), moves to different schools, disruption to their education, temporary accommodation in schools.
Private companies are not charitable organisations. They are there to make profits and satisfy their shareholders. Do we really want our council-tax money lining the pockets of private firms over the next 25 years, instead of providing education and services, as it should? I think not.
Theresa C Jackson,
43 Firhill Street, Glasgow.
June 4.
YOUR front-page story and leading article on June 2 on the proposed Hillhead/Woodside school merger in Glasgow gave space to the allegation that I argued for two buildings to be consulted on as options because I wished to please my voters in Kelvingrove.
This is a charge I take extremely seriously. In fact, not a single elector has approached me about this, and the Woodside School Board, whose meetings I have regularly attended, as I am bound to do, has never once suggested that anything other than educational considerations should govern the choice of buildings.
There are some clear advantages which the Woodside building possesses as compared to Hillhead. They may not be decisive, and the final decision of the council may well be to spend the extra money on Hillhead.
But I do not believe that it represents a fair and responsible stewardship of education or of public money to suppress debate on this issue, which is what a single-option consultation would have done.
Councillor Malcolm Green,
Education Convener,
Glasgow City Council,
George Square,
Glasgow.
June 4.
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