Denominational schooling is no longer in the interests of Scottish education, says the first of the education resolutions in the conference booklet for the Labour Party Scottish Council’s fifty-sixth annual conference to be held at Perth on April 2, 3, and 4. Of the 16 education resolutions in the booklet, the first five - from East Renfrewshire, Leith, West Edinburgh, Central Ayrshire and Hillhead - call for integration of denominational schools. The sixth, from North Aberdeen, says it should no longer be compulsory for schools to provide religious education.
* Any illegal use of drugs in Perthshire and Kinross appeared to be to a comparatively minor scale, the county’s education committee have been told, following reports from the director, the chief constable, and the county medical officer. But Mr Scott Davidson, Cleish, said he had information “from a schoolgirl, 15 or 16, perfectly reliable, that there is a very well known place in Perth where you can go and get what you like when you like, and no bother about it”.
Some of this stuff came from towns where there were docks - Dundee among them. “Students or some people of that type are involved,” he said.
* All unmarried female students at Aberdeen University have been issued with a questionnaire asking about their knowledge and use of contraceptives. The university’s Department of Mental Health has emphasised that the survey is strictly scientific and has no moral intention.
* Students in West of Scotland colleges of education may soon be able to study for the B.Ed degree from Strathclyde University. The principle has already been approved by the senate, and this week the academic planning committee agreed to set up a feasibility study. Negotiations have been going on since 1969, when Notre Dame College made an approach to the university.
TES SCOTLAND, February 26, 1971
