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New schools
12/11/2008
Four new schools are to be opened within the next two weeks.
Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, will see first-hand how 3,000 pupils are benefiting from new classrooms across Scotland as she formally opens the new schools.
This week, Ms Hyslop will tour the first, the £10million Sanderson's Wynd Primary School in Tranent, East Lothian, where more than 300 school children have been enjoying their new modern classroom settings since the new school term began.
The Cabinet Secretary said:
"I am extremely happy to see first-hand the work that authorities are carrying out in creating a school estate which is fit for purpose. To carry out four school openings in just 12 days is a demonstration of this administration's commitment to ensuring Scotland's school pupils are moved out of poor quality schools.
"Sanderson's Wynd Primary School is an excellent example of the work that can be done in combining the needs of teachers and pupils with easing the demands on the environment. I congratulate the council for developing a new generation of low-energy schools which is leading the way in school design."
In the next 12 days, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning will also be opening:
- Stirling's Wallace High School with a school roll of over 900, one of eight schools in Stirling Council's schools project with a capital value of £90 million
- Calderside Academy in Blantyre with a school roll of around 1,350, one of 19 schools in South Lanarkshire Council's Secondary Schools Modernisation Programme with a capital value of £318 million
- Duloch Primary School, including Calaiswood Additional Support Needs school, on Dunfermline's Duloch Campus, with a combined school roll 380, two of ten schools in Fife Council's schools project with a capital value of £63 million
Ms Hyslop said:
"This Government expects that in only four years, 100,000 more school pupils will be benefiting from a 21st Century education delivered in cutting-edge schools just like this."
With 35,000 pupils already in new classrooms since 2007, the Cabinet Secretary has pledged that the number of pupils being educated in crumbling schools will be cut by around a third in the lifetime of this parliament. The number of schools in Condition C (poor) & D (bad) in 2008 was more than 800, covering around 200,000 young people.
Ms Hyslop stressed that Scotland's school building programme is continuing apace with 250 schools expected to be paid for and delivered during the life of this Parliament.
She continued:
"My visits over the next 12 days show that progress is being made in improving the school estate but it also highlights that this Government has inherited an estate which is in poor shape.
"We are committed to lifting 100,000 school pupils out of tired and crumbling school buildings providing them with cutting-edge facilities fit for the delivery of Curriculum for Excellence by 2011."