COLIN CAMPBELL: Crowdfunding for Highland schools is a dire state of affairs
Anger over millions of pounds being cut from the Highland schools budget has an all too familiar ring to it. Parental protest over school closures, cutbacks and deprivation of funding has resounded down the generations.
Some of the parents protesting bitterly over the council decision in September to axe upgrading and rebuilding plans for schools across the region will be emulating the actions of their parents who fought for the right to have well-equipped, watertight and windproof school buildings in their communities. Now a new generation of adults determined to get the best education possible for their own children has taken on the responsibility of engaging in the struggle.
And they are utilising a modern-day tactic to raise money for their cause – crowdfunding. Parent groups involved with Beauly Primary, Charleston Academy, Park Primary in Invergordon and St Clement’s in Dingwall have launched a Project Hope – Build 4 Highland Schools campaign on GoFundMe.
The level of hope and ambition surrounding this campaign is in its way inspiring.
But crowdfunding? To build new schools? Is that the level the provision of education for children has now sunk to?
This is no slight or slur on the parents involved. They see it as the only way forward. But crowdfunding is associated with raising money for sponsorship or good causes or on rare occasions to finance special medical treatment abroad for a sick young child. And many people have been moved to contribute to achieve financial targets.
The bill for even one new school runs into the millions. Folk would need to go beyond a passing contribution of a modest sum and throw in their monthly salary. In the absence of any other way forward however, parents see it as all they’ve got.
The cuts made by councillors were the most swingeing and savage in years, with the backlash against them even stronger than the outcry which erupted in the 1980s over a move to “rationalise” – that of course meant close – small rural primaries in many parts of the Highlands.
Beauly Primary was just about holding together when I started there as a child more than 60 years ago. Now its funding will be reduced from £10.8 million to £800,000. That could mean the clock being turned back 60 years. Maybe it was in better shape when I was there than it is now.
Funding to replace dilapidated Charleston Academy – originally budgeted at £14.5 million – now stands at just £1.5 million.
So upgrading plans for both schools – and others – have been absolutely butchered.
Realistically, the parents involved in this venture know that crowdfunding is not going to come anywhere near bringing in the vast amount of money needed to build new schools.
But they are keeping the issue and the state of their schools in the headlines and refusing to give up and accept educational decline and decay. They are emulating the tenacity of generations gone by who fought similar battles in a different but equally determined way.
If Highland Council is unable to fulfil its responsibilities and the Scottish Government is failing to provide adequate funding support then the onus falls on parents to try and crowdfund money for bricks and mortar themselves. The tactic is determined, inspiring – and highlights a dire and desperate state of affairs.
