Press Release
24th February 2000
Children and Parents will win if School Holidays are Brought into Line
MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Duncan McNeil, today welcomed the call from Minister for Children and Education, Sam Galbraith for greater efforts in harmonising school term and holiday dates between education authorities.
Authorities are also being asked for suggestions for improving co-ordination efforts in the future. This follows representations recently made to Ministers about the problems parents face when different authorities set different dates.
Commenting on the move, Mr McNeil said:
"We all value the time we can spend with our families. However, families in which both parents work already find it difficult to spend as much time together as they would wish.
"If children from the same family go to different schools and have different holidays, this makes an already difficult situation worse.
"I am therefore pleased at this move towards co-ordinated school holidays. It is important that education authorities work together to take a consistent approach when setting school term and holiday dates."
ENDS
Notes:
The law requires schools in Scotland to be open for 190 days per year but does not determine the dates for school holidays. That is for the discretion of education authorities. Difficulties can arise for families when school holidays in neighbouring authorities do not coincide. For that reason, Sam Galbraith has instructed officials to write to authorities reminding them of the need to adopt a consistent approach in setting holiday dates.
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