It is starting to feel like the Mull School saga might never end

This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

It is starting to feel like the Mull School saga might never end.

To recap: a new school is needed on the island, but the council’s preferred approach to delivering it means that children from the south of the island, some as young as 11, will continue to be shipped off to a state-run hostel in Oban in order to access high school education.

What's the latest with the Mull School saga, and what's next?

The council insists it has acted properly, and won a judicial review, but local campaigners, including the families expected to send their children away, insist that their local authority is forcing through a policy that will entrench a devastating generation injustice, while human rights experts have also raised major concerns about any move to reinforce the island’s educational status quo.

But for all the possible complexity of this issue, and the controversy over the way in which the community has been treated by Argyll and Bute Council, the solution has actually been obvious for a long time: reopen the process, put all options on the table, and let the people of Mull decide what is best for their island, their community, and their children.

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Today, the SNP has released a manifesto for the coming Holyrood election, and it includes a specific mention of this controversy.

Under a section entitled 'School Estate', it refers to a “continued commitment to delivering a new Mull Campus, following effective........

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