Covid-19 could cause half of Scotland’s outdoor education centres to close by autumn next year, the Scottish Parliament has heard.
An ongoing petition calling on the Scottish government to help save under-threat centres has attracted nearly 20,000 signatures, and the “desperate” situation was highlighted by Conservative MSP Liz Smith in Parliament yesterday.
She said it was “time to treasure our outdoor education centres in the same way as we treasure our schools”.
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Ms Smith said: “As the circumstances stand just now, it is predicted that half - I repeat, half - of our 36 outdoor centres are likely to close by autumn 2021. If they do, they will likely not return.
“We simply cannot allow that to happen. Every single outdoor group to whom I have spoken over the past two weeks - I am grateful to them all - has told me that we must act now if we are to save our outdoor education centres.
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Ms Smith said the situation was “especially bad in some of the most rural and remote locations” and not confined to “land-based” outdoor education, adding: ”Ocean Youth Trust Scotland, which provides a floating outdoor education centre and which has, in the past 20 years, looked after 14,000 young people, many of them with specific challenges, has not been able to sail any boats at all this year.”
She said during yesterday’s debate that schools were “finding it particularly difficult to afford the necessary coach hire or the fees that are required for specialist assistance, whether that be for activities such as canoeing, rock-climbing or abseiling”.
Ms Smith described as a “hammer blow” Scottish government guidance published in August, advising local authorities that residential school trips should not take place, and that that decision would not be reviewed until December at the earliest.
This, she said, represented £2.3 million of lost income for the Scouts alone, while “50 jobs are at stake” for the Scottish Outdoor Education Centres (SOEC) charity.
She added: ”With the current growth in Covid-19 and the ongoing uncertainty, the SOEC can see that schools and local authorities will be unlikely to send youngsters to outdoor education centres for the rest of this term and possibly for the spring term.
“This is a desperate plea from all of them for the collective will of government, of Parliament and other institutions to help them to find the necessary funds to tide them over until next summer to prevent any closures, because, I repeat, if those centres close, they will not open again.”
Richard Lochhead, minister for further education, higher education and science, said there was “no doubt that outdoor centres support learners’ health and wellbeing, as well as their attainment”, but he also pointed to “huge demands on the public purse at the moment”.
Mr Lochhead added: “We will look in detail at the different funding mechanisms that are available at national and local level, and we will explore how those funding streams can be deployed more effectively.
“The Scottish government has continued to work closely with representatives of outdoor education centres throughout the crisis to look at how we can navigate through the current difficulties. The positive contributions of outdoor learning and outdoor centres feature throughout our Covid-19 recovery guidance.”
Mr Lochhead said that a “range of funding sources” was now available “to complement the funding that comes from local authorities and schools”, and gave a number of examples.
He added: “Finally, as others have mentioned, outdoor education centres have been able to access financial support through the UK government’s coronavirus job-retention scheme. Today’s debate reinforces, yet again, the case for that scheme to be extended.”
