Tuesday 20 May 2008

Cardiff school saved from the wreckers.

This piece comes from the Socialist party wales website. On another note i've finished most of my coursework now so I'll be able to do a couple of things I've been putting off for a while, inlcuding making some updates to the blog.
Campaigners from Lansdowne Primary School in Canton in Cardiff are celebrating this week after winning their fight to save their school.
Report by Ross Saunders
( Cardiff West Socialist Party, Unison Steward Fitzalan High School)

Eight months of hard, well-organised campaigning by parents, staff and community members has proved that fighting back can win results. The victory has given a huge boost to schools like Llanedeyrn, Cefn Onn and Llanrumney, which still lie under the axe.The campaign forced school closures to the top of the agenda in the recent Council elections. Socialist Alternative candidates standing under the banner of Save Our Schools gained respectable votes and Plaid Cymru were pressured into opposing the school closures. Plaid has now joined forces with the Lib Dems on the Council Executive. Cantonian High School will also remain open and anew school for over-crowded Welsh-language Primary Ysgol Treganna. will be built. But the school closures programme has not been withdrawn.
These developments have exposed the lies peddled by local Labour councillors, who claimed building a new Welsh-language school was impossible without closing an English-speaking school.
Plaid, which has been able to fake left while in opposition, now faces having to administer closures in the city, or come up against its own party members in the WAG coalition with Labour. Canton has won its battle for now, but campaigners have expressed their sympathy with the other schools still on the closures list. People in other parts of the city will ask how Plaid can close schools in their area while saving those in their own back yard.
Socialist Party members, who have supported Lansdowne and the other schools campaigns from the beginning, are calling for so-called "surplus places" to be redistributed amongst all the schools in Cardiff in order to lower class sizes and raise standards, and demands the funding arrangements be changed in order to allow this. Colossal pressure has been able to divert the main parties from attacks in some parts of the city, but until a new party that acts in the interests of ordinary people is created, campaigners will have to continue their fight against school closures and job cuts in education

1 comment:

Joseph Dubonnet said...

You may be interested in this: Almost Half of Canadians would ban police officers from using Tasers
See here:
http://angusreidstrategies.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=view&page=60
Cheers!
Joseph