PARENTS, PUPILS and teaching staff in Cardiff are outraged at the
city council’s plans to close 17 secondary, primary, infant and nursery
schools across the city.
The council’s proposed ‘education reforms’ will shut some schools and
merge others while expanding a few more. The plans, which are far bigger
and with more far-reaching effects than teachers, pupils and parents
expected, could hit every school in the city.
In Whitchurch, the biggest school in Wales will see its lower school
site closed and relocated to the same site as its upper school. A parent
asked incredulously how could the whole school be squeezed into the
upper school’s site?
Parents are also worried about children’s schooling being disrupted,
longer school runs and job losses for teachers. The council claims that
action was needed to solve the problem of falling pupil numbers but many
teachers were angry at the number of teaching posts to be lost over the
course of the plan.
They ask why Cardiff council is not looking at reducing school class
sizes, for long a basic aim for teaching trade unions, rather than
savaging schools and jobs.
Even though the council made the announcement at the time of the
Easter holidays, banners of protest were hung out in protest at the
closures at some schools. That is a good sign that a campaign of
opposition to these plans involving education unions, school students
and the local communities can be built.
More in future issues of The Socialist
