Edinburgh councillors at budget meeting greeted by protesting teachers - and pupils playing clarsachs

Schools face four sets of cuts

Clarsach pupils Bronwen Stahl and Lili McShea were highlighting the threat to free music tuition

COUNCILLORS arriving for a finance committee to discuss next year’s budget were greeted by teachers protesting over school cuts - and two pupils playing the clarsach.

Sixteen-year-olds Bronwen Stahl and Lili McShea from James Gillespie’s High School were there to highlight the threat to free music tuition in the budget proposals.

The council plans to cut £500,000 from teaching musical instruments and says it will consult on how the savings should be achieved - which could mean charging or reducing the range of instruments.

EIS members lobbied the council's finance committee over the cuts

Bronwen’s mother, Dr Anke-Beate Stahl, an art teacher, said the girls were National Mod winners.

“This has only possible because of free tuition,” she said. “Without free tuition we would never have been able financially to do it.”

And she claimed if free tuition came to an end there would be a “massive brain drain” of music tutors and talented pupils to the private education sector.

Dr Stahl said the girls had played at the National Museum of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament and other venues including the City Chambers.

”The girls are grateful for the opportunity but the council are drawing on these children to play at events. They cannot expect the standard of musicianship if they don’t put the money in.

”We are very grateful our children have had this and we think future children should have the same.”

Members of teaching union the EIS attended the meeting to argue against four separate proposed cuts affecting schools.

In addition to cutting music tuition, the council is proposing to withdraw qualified teachers from nursery schools to save £900,000; slash budgets handed to school heads by £1.8m; and cut the number of qualified improvement officers who give specialist advice and support to heads, saving £240,000.

EIS Edinburgh secretary Alison Murphy said the cuts could mean a loss of subject choice for pupils in secondaries and larger classes in primaries, a reduction in vital support staff and leave schools struggling for resources like jotters and books, let alone science equipment.

“Even a test tube is likely to become a luxury item,” she said.

She reeled off a long list of tasks schools had been told was their responsibility - from reducing the attainment gap to ensuring a skilled and competent workforce.

But in view of the cuts she asked: “What shall schools stop doing? Because I tell you now, with rock solid certainty, we cannot do all this when we don’t even have the money to buy jotters. We just can’t, and teachers every day are cracking under the strain of trying.”

Alastair Gaw, director of communities and families, said the £1.8m savings in devolved school budgets had to be seen in context.

He told the meeting the reductions of £1.2m next year and £600,000 the following year represented 0.5 and 0.25 per cent of the overall budget.

“And this is in the context of about £30m additional money going into school over the next three years because of demography, pay rises, pension costs and the rest. And there is additional funding through the attainment challenge.

“I think what we are asking of our head teachers in managing these budgets is reasonable and judicious.”