CALLS for parents to run schools rather than councils have promoted a backlash from teaching unions.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) said the suggested "English-style opt-out model" would be divisive and called for councils to continue to run schools.
The call came after a new charitable trust said parents should be given the right to set up community schools outside council control.
The Hometown Foundation said recent international comparisons showed Scottish education was no longer a world leader and called for alternative ways of delivering it.
The Scottish Government already funds several schools which are not run by local authorities including Jordanhill, in the west end of Glasgow, and a number of specialist schools.
However, the move would be highly controversial because a previous attempt to allow schools to opt-out by the Conservatives was seen as an attempt to undermine the power of councils.
Free schools and academies south of the Border have also proved unpopular with teaching unions who argue they are divisive and a waste of money.
The issue has come to the fore because First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is currently looking at proposals for a community school drawn up by families from East Dunbartonshire after the council decided to close St Joseph’s Primary School, in Milngavie, last year.
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS, said: “It is interesting that, in the week that Scottish education is celebrating 50 years since the creation of Scotland’s comprehensive schools, we are now hearing a call for this very successful model to be eroded.
"The EIS continues to believe, resolutely, that the best means of.... ensuring equality of provision across communities is for state-funded comprehensive schools to remain within local authority control."
Mr Flanagan said recent evidence from south of the border had shown the programme of establishing Academy schools had "done nothing" to raise educational attainment.
He added: "There is little or no enthusiasm within the EIS or elsewhere in the Scottish education community for the ideologically-driven, market-orientated approach to education that continues to be promoted south of the border."
However, Bill Nicol director of the Hometown Foundation, who is helping St Joseph’s parents prepare a business case, said it was "unfortunate" the EIS had adopted a "defensive stance" in relation to the concept of community-led autonomous schools in Scotland.
He added: "Education experts have been saying for some time that there are significant benefits of autonomy since this is a pre-requisite for improvement.
"The EIS has conveniently ignored the enormous disparity in educational outcomes across its membership. What we are seeing is a gap within the state sector between lower and high performing schools which is promoting further social division."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel