WHAT should education and schools look like in Dumfries and Galloway in the future?
That’s the question being asked at a series of consultation events taking place around the region.
Dumfries and Galloway Council are considering how they can make their school estate more sustainable in the face of falling pupil rolls and less money.
And they are asking parents, councillors, teachers and youngsters for their input.
Lockerbie Academy hosted one of the consultation events last week and it’s Dalbeattie’s turn next week, then there will be events at the Douglas Ewart High School and North West Community Campus in April.
Participants are hearing that many schools locally are operating under capacity, there’s more classrooms in some places than are needed and 13 per cent of secondaries are in a poor condition.
They are invited to take part in discussions on catchment areas, school facilities, ideal travel times, classroom sizes, accessibility and more.
Looking to the future, education officials suggest a new regional model may be needed “to ensure schools are the right size and fit for the communities they serve; are energy efficient; offer equity in education and are fit for 21st century learners”.
The project is being led by Laran Foss and he first briefed councillors on the education committee last November, describing it as ‘a really huge task’.
At that time, Mr Foss said: “Our school estate is so old, it needs to be brought up to modern standards: in 1975 we had 152 schools, now we have 113. We need to absolutely take control of this to make sure the limited funding we have goes in the best places so we get the best return for it.”
He warned the consultation process will ‘take time’ but will lead to a masterplan that will be the model for the ‘next five to ten to 30 years’, with the data used to “try and map out what a perfect school estate looks like”.
