Calls for safekeeping of Gaelic resources
Parents outraged at the dumping of thousands of Gaelic books in an Oban skip are demanding to know where similar resources will now be stored and if will they be catalogued.
Argyll and Bute Council has already admitted there was previously no inventory of its Gaelic teaching resources and that schools were replenishing their stocks ‘ad-hoc’ from the former education office in Dalintart Road until it was shut down and cleared.
Comann nam Pàrant an Òbain has suggested each Gaelic Medium setting should have a responsible person in charge of resources for their own unit.
Executive director of education Douglas Hendry has said resources being skipped ‘should not have happened’.
A statement from Alison Craig, who is chairperson of Comann nam Pàrant an Òbain, in response to findings from a council investigation into how the Gaelic resources ended up in the skip last month, said: ‘Our children in the Gaelic Medium Education settings within Argyll and Bute Council education remit do not have enough books, they share resources, books are restapled and sellotaped as some of them are in such bad condition; photocopies of some books are sent home as homework as there are not enough books for one per child.
‘There were story books that our children have never even seen, and even worse there were some resources that are actually no longer in print that are classed as gold-dust within the Gaelic community and people will/would pay good money to have copies of these.
‘The staff tasked with clearing it (the office) out felt they had to make decisions on the day, using their own judgement on whether resources should continue to be stored, distributed to schools/partners or others or put into the skip.
‘Did the staff have any knowledge of Gaelic Medium Education? Or were they acting on the orders of “get the units emptied”?’
Ms Craig asked: ‘Where will Gaelic resources be stored from now on?
‘Why can Argyll and Bute Council not do as all other councils do and have a representative for each Gaelic Medium Education Unit who is in charge of the resources within their own setting?
‘If each education setting dealt with its own resources that would mean there is no waste and there will never be a repeat of this performance again.’