JUST as Blackburn with Darwen Council is provoking controversy by proposing the closure of two old people's homes, now it courts more concern with plans to rationalise its special schools for children with learning difficulties.

One or more of four highly-regarded and officially praised schools may shut as facilities are concentrated in new complexes catering for children with either moderate or more severe problems.

And, as with the old folks' homes, the council is consulting the public on its plans. But it seems - as many of the staff, residents and their relatives suspect in the case of the targeted homes for the elderly - that the consultation is token and that the decisions are already as good as made.

For just as the education committee was pledging that none of the schools under review will close without full consultation, the ruling Labour group was at the same meeting deciding which of the post-closure options it wanted - providing just two schools in the future: one for children with complex difficulties; the other for those with moderate ones.

This apparent haste may not only be unseemly, but it may also be rash, even though it will be September next year at the earliest before any closures could occur. For one of the main focuses of this review favours the placing of children now attending these special schools into mainstream schools - a well-intentioned process that offers them the opportunity of a "normal" lifestyle, but one which can also subject children with problems to the horrors of ridicule from other pupils and, worse, the risk of bullying.

It is vital, therefore, that any change in the provision of special schools is handled carefully and effectively.

It is said that these rationalisation plans are not a cost-cutting measure, but are triggered by falling rolls at the special schools - a development stemming from more children with less severe difficulties attending mainstream schools.

But the furtherance of this process ought not to lead to the run-down of the special schools to the extent that parents may be faced with no choice other than the mainstream schools whether or not it is beneficial for their children or whether or not they are happy there.

Education vice-chairman Councillor Kathy Stephenson maintains no child will be forced to go to a mainstream school and that parental choice will be maintained. She and the council must be inescapably tied to this pledge at the outset - particularly since, for all the consultation, the extent of future special school provision already seems cut and dried.

Watch her lips. After all, in the case of homes for the elderly, we have already had a firm statement from the council leadership that none would shut, only for it to be followed by "consultation" on the closure of two of them.

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