The loss of curricular swimming may also mean that the city will not be able to comply with an action plan due from the Scottish Executive before the end of June following a national review of school swimming set up last year by the Deputy Education Minister.

None of the 10 schools built under Glasgow’s public private partnership (PPP) programme has a pool and six have been demolished, leaving only 14 of the city’s 29 secondaries with pools. In the primary sector, pupils are guaranteed just 12 lessons in primary 7.

Four of the six secondaries that lost their pools will all have dropped swimming from the curriculum by August - St Mungo’s Academy, St Margaret Mary’s Secondary, Drumchapel High and Smithycroft Secondary.

A decision is awaited at All Saints Secondary and Castlemilk High. Hillhead High no longer offers swimming as a core activity.

Ian McDonald, depute director of education, defended the council’s policy when he appeared before MSPs on the parliamentary finance committee last December. He said pools were not good value for money, costing pound;40 each time a pupil took the plunge.

Mr McDonald said pupils now benefited from a combination of free leisure swimming and good public pools, and had better all-round sports provision with 29 new games halls and synthetic pitches.

But teachers say the time it takes to transport pupils to public pools within single periods of around 50 minutes makes swimming “totally impracticable”. Knightswood Secondary has been forced to stop using a local pool because of spiralling transport costs.

Teachers say schools that used sports centres are cutting back because demand for water time from other users has severely curtailed the available teaching area. Schools are often allocated one lane and have to compete with other schools, members of the public and even taped music from aqua-aerobics classes.

One principal teacher said that his department felt classes were “not welcome”.

PE teachers reject claims that offering free passes is an adequate substitute. One said: “Free swimming is to be welcomed but it is not a replacement for lessons in curricular time. Some children will use the passes, but it will be mostly the same ones. Non-swimmers will tend not to go. These children need exposure to swimming skills and water safety in school time.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “Before the PPP project began, every headteacher endorsed the provision identified for his or her school.”

By contrast, Falkirk’s five new PPP-funded secondaries all have pools and curricular swimming is seen as vital. The authority also uses three public pools.

Paul Bush, chief executive of Scottish Swimming, the sport’s governing body, said every child should have a legal entitlement.

THE RIGHT TO SWIM

Aberdeen has introduced an “entitlement” to swimming after a survey of S1 classes revealed wide disparities between schools. Brian Woodcock, director of arts and recreation, said it was a “complete nonsense” that a key life skill should not be at the core of statutory schooling.