EDUCATION bosses have been slammed for getting their sums wrong in a review which could result in schools in Ilkley being closed.

And an Ilkley school governor has warned that many other figures used to justify the education shake-up are open to question.

After delivering an interim report outlining the options for change to worried heads of smaller schools, education officials admitted they had to telephone and explain the error.

According to the report, more than nine per cent of Bradford's education budget, about £12 million, was spent on keeping small schools open.

This made it seem like Bradford was spending four times the national average.

The real figure, since corrected, is 1.9 per cent not 9.1, but former Ilkley Labour Party chairman Andrew Dundas says that many people still have the wrong impression.

He said support for closing down smaller schools could come from people who still think it would save more than £12 million a year rather than around one or two million.

Mr Dundas said: "We now learn that Bradford has got its sums wrong.

"It does not know whether there is much of a saving from closing nearly 80 schools at all.

"If we are going to have the disruption of closing between 70 and 80 schools, we have got to have good reason."

He said that the issue of funding must be separated from the issue of the educational value of shaking up the system.

Cash-saving

But he added that many people still believed the original figure supplied, making large-scale school closures a much more attractive cash-saving option.

Ray Watson, the official leading the Bradford school review team, said the mistake had been a typographical error which was soon corrected.

He said that the funding of smaller schools was not the main issue for the the teachers, councillors, governors and parents to consider.

"The issue is whether smaller schools can provide a breadth of expertise at key stages," said Mr Watson.

But Martin Smith, an Ilkley Tory Councillor who is on the board of governors at Ilkley Grammar School, questioned the accuracy of many of the figures in the report.

Speaking about the opposition on Bradford Council, Coun Smith said: "We, as a group, are not happy that the figures and charts are in fact sufficiently accurate to be presented as part of a review.

"We have some doubts about quite a lot of the figures.

"You can make any statistic mean what you want it to mean."

After a preview of a council questionnaire about to be sent to parents and school governors, Coun Smith said he thought that it was loaded in favour of a pre-conceived strategy already decided on by education bosses.

"The questions are asked in such a way as to give the answers they want," said Coun Smith.

The review, containing three options including one which suggests Ilkley and the surrounding area could retain a three-tier school system while the rest of the district abolishes Middle Schools, comes at a time when heads are becoming increasingly alarmed at the diminishing level of funding provided by the local authority.

Peter Wood, head teacher at Ilkley Grammar School, said: "The simple position is that we do not get enough money.

"While our costs increase our budget does not.

"Things have really got worse in the last couple of years."

Education bosses have said that the massive review was prompted by a need to address low education standards in the Bradford District.

But Ilkley Tory Councillor Ann Hawkesworth is convinced that the whole strategy is a money saving exercise and has warned that the funding for schools in the 'Ilkley Pyramid' will be subjected to further cuts.

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