THE education committee of Western Isles Council will next month consider a proposal to begin public consultation over a merger between Stornoway's senior secondary and the school at the centre of bullying claims in 1995, writes David Ross, Highland Correspondent.
The merger proposal for the 1000-pupil Nicolson Institute, a school mainly providing vocationally-based courses, and the 200-pupil Lews Castle School, the long-established senior secondary school on Lewis, has been made by education officials.
It will also be discussed by the working group on the Nicolson Institute which includes HM inspectors of schools.
The group was set up after a special HMI inspection of the school was ordered by Scottish education minister Brian Wilson, amid claims of bullying in the aftermath of the suicide of a 16-year-old girl in December 1995.
A spokesman for the council said yesterday that the proposal was not an attempt to improve the image of the Nicolson Institute.
''Throughout Scotland education authorities are having to rationalise provision at primary and secondary levels in response to pressures on public spending,'' he said. ''We are no different.''
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