Putting a ‘value’ on rural schools

There are the better part of 750,000 words in the English language.

It has begged, borrowed and stolen from everything from Latin and Japanese to Inuit and Irish.

However, we have difficulty with “value”. We hear every day that the Government wants to get better value for money. It is this narrow interpretation of the word that is causing problems. There seems to be no word that puts any usefulness on an asset that reflects anything other than a monetary figure.

We now have our small rural schools being wiped off the map in the search for better “value”. No mention of the cost to the pupils and parents. No mention of the destruction of the local community. In this environmentally conscious age we are aware of the “air miles” fruit and vegetables incur when carted half way around the world to satisfy a desire for out of season produce.

So let us search for a word we can give to the Government that they can use when next meeting with the Troika, a word that expresses the worth to the communities of these schools in something more valuable than euro.

John K Rogers

Rathowen

Co Westmeath