Scottish Catholic Observer

The leader of the Scottish Conservative Party will highlight the case of St Joseph’s Primary in Milngavie later today during a speech to the party conference in Edinburgh.

Ruth Davidson (above) is to call for an overhaul of education and the right for schools to opt out of local authority control, according to the party.

Parents from St Joseph’s—which East Dunbartonshire Council is planning to close and merge with St Andrew’s Primary in a new-build in Bearsden—are seeking political support to run the school as a community.

St Joseph’s is the only Catholic school in Milngavie and parents are seeking grant funding from the Scottish government to continue on the same site. Only eight schools in Scotland are grant-aided—special schools like those for the blind, and the unique case of Jordanhill in Glasgow which has always been funded from the government budget. All other non-independent schools in Scotland are funded and maintained by the local authority.

“I can tell you this: in Scotland right now there are parents and communities who would love the chance to run their school, but are being told they can’t,” Ms Davidson is expected to say during her keynote speech. “They just keep running up against a government machine that’s programmed to say ‘we know best.’”

The Glasgow MSP had raised the issue yesterday in parliament at First Minister’s Questions, prompting Nicola Sturgeon to say she will meet parents and listen to their ideas, but highlighting that the option of self-governing schools in Scotland was repealed in 2000. She gave no signal she would permit this in future.

St Joseph’s parents had campaigned for two years against the council’s plans. In July, the Scottish Government ‘called-in’ the decision for review, but ultimately backed the council.

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