News

HOWARD'S WAY.... a weekly column from Michael Howard MP

14 September 2006

 

In the 23 years during which I have been the Member of Parliament for the Folkestone and Hythe constituency, few things have made me more angry than Kent County Council’s proposal to close Harcourt and Selsted primary schools.

Last Thursday I went to Maidstone to plead the cause of these schools before the Schools Advisory Board. They voted unanimously to reject the proposal to close Harcourt so I am hopeful that proposal will bite the dust. But, on a split vote, they voted to accept the proposal to close Selsted. I still hope that wiser counsels will prevail. By the time you read this the decision of the Cabinet Member for Education may be known.

The County Council’s proposals are based on the Kent Primary Strategy. But as I demonstrated last Thursday, the Kent Primary Strategy is fundamentally flawed. It is based on an alleged recommendation by the Department for Education and Skills about the appropriate number of surplus places that are to be regarded acceptable. But the recommendation just doesn’t exist. As the Department’s spokesman told me last week, ‘Kent have just made it up!’

This was admitted to be true by Dr Ian Craig, the Director of Education (Operations) at last Thursday’s meeting. So members of the Council and members of the public have been grossly misled by the untruthful statement that this recommendation exists.

One simple statistic illustrates how perverse the County Council’s policy is. The number of rural primary schools approved for closure by the government is, on average, 6 – for the whole country. Yet as a result of its Primary Strategy, Kent County Council proposed to close 8 rural primary schools and “amalgamate” 3 more. Add them up and, in effect, you get 11 closures – almost twice as many as the whole of the rest of the country put together.

I believe in the right of parents to exercise choice in deciding which school is the best for their child. If this choice is to be real then there have to be spare places. This does involve extra cost but it is a principle recognised by all the main political parties.

Selsted Church of England Primary School is a highly valued school. There are no alternative places available in similar schools in the vicinity to accommodate its pupils. Its closure would be an act of educational vandalism. I shall do everything in my power to prevent it.