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  • Johnston backs praises response of Lib Dem MEP Watson August 31, 2010
    Paul Johnston, a leading Aberdeenshire Councillor has welcomed the link between the Pakistan floods to climate change and the need for the UK to tackle it in a more co-ordinated manner. “In much of the coverage of the tragedy that is Pakistan at the moment it is hard to make the connection to the UK.  Its […]

Energy

 ------News-------

Back Scrappage scheme says Councillor

An Aberdeenshire Councillor, Paul Johnston, is seeking the Council’s urgent support for a campaign to persuade the Scottish government to introduce a boiler scrappage scheme in Scotland similar to one very recently announced south of the border.

Councillor Johnston has submitted an emergency notice of motion to get the Council to pressure First Minister Alex Salmond to introduce a scheme in Scotland where up to 12,000 homes may qualify for grants to get more efficient and better heating boilers.

“Aberdeenshire, with lower average temperatures would be a big beneficiary from improved efficient boilers and a scheme such as this would not just reduce our carbon emissions, but create and sustain jobs in plumbing and manufacture.” said Paul.

“Aberdeenshire Council should be supporting the attempts by Lib Dem Mike Rumbles MSP to have this scheme and support the many lower income families who could well benefit significantly from lower heating costs. Recent cold
weather suggests this would be a welcome boost for saving money and fuel, helping climate change and boosting jobs”

Councillor Johnston requires the approval of the Provost to introduce the motion and then the support of the Council.

January 20th, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: News

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Paul's Blog

  • Exams and Scottish Higher Education
    August 5, 2010 | 7:21 pm

    On the day that Scottish Exam results drop through the letterboxes of expecting students, there remains the unresolved debate about the future of higher education that underlies all the comments that will flow forth from the great and good.

    My concerns that commentators will rubbish the results again, as they do when any increase in pass rates are announced.  The requirements of any qualification change with time.  It does not mean it gets easier – it can, but there is no evidence that it actually has.  But there is evidence it has changed in another way.

    Change in the the topics covered by exams have always happened.  How many doing Maths now would be able to handle a slide rule?  In my day, it was part of the exam.  Now students would no know what a slide rule was.

    For all those who are tempted to suggest the utter nonsense of advising students not to go to further Education but study things that industry bosses want now, could I enter the thought that we are really teaching people for occupations in technologies and systems that have not even been invented yet.  Such is the challenge of the future.

    Congratulations to all students in your results.  I just hope that the generation currently making decisions about your futures, your higher education places and the very sustainability of the Country, will not indulge in the short term thinking of ‘government spending’.  I hope they will have the courage for the investment in peoples’ futures and not our selfish present.

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