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Scottish Borders Local Association |
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Extinguishing an educational beaconPublished Date: 8 January 2009Letters to the editor ... Soundbites are no substitute for commonsense or strategy. Snappy one-liners, they're only an excuse. St Andrew’s Arts Centre in Galashiels, an educational beacon for 30 years, is “a dog that has had its day”, apparently. Any stick will do to beat it and thereby demean its work over the years – but it is no dog. It is a goat; a scapegoat; a lamb to the slaughter; a rabbit out of the hat; a hasty, last-minute addition to SBC’s Christmas chopping list, to save peanuts ... compared to the rest of the budget. With employees muzzled and councillors ‘cabinetted’, as long as some money for jotters and books still comes there’ll be no voting parents marching in the streets to stop it. The bits that’ll cause the least stir go first to the wall. “We’ll be bringing the arts to the children, instead of the children to the arts”. Again, no. The primary children will still have to be brought to the devolved centres. The edict has gone out. The devil lies in the detail, for the staff to get down and work out somehow, as usual. So it’s still-travelling children, plus now-travelling head teachers and travelling janitors. People are judged not by what they say, but by what they do. Someone needs to pay tribute to the vision of our predecessors who, despite the local government management on a shoestring of the last 30 years, held on, somehow, to keep that show on the road – till now. Primary children spend much of their daily time using the expressive arts in their schoolwork. A light and a stimulus for that work is being extinguished. That’s a real bite; with a mark that will be remembered. Donald Gordon Newstead
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