By DAVID ROSS HIGHLAND CORRESPONDENT WESTERN Isles councillors last night voted 18-11 to continue to close all seven of their two-year secondary schools, a day after the Scottish Government announced measures to protect rural schools from closure.

By Mike Merritt IT is a state-run secondary where the cost of educating its 22 pupils dwarfs the fees at many top private schools. A massive Pounds 24,745 is spent per child at Daliburgh Secondary on South Uist - around Pounds 5,000 more than at Gordonstoun, Prince Charles's alma mater.

By Claire Smith LEARNING how to fix rooftiles onto a house in a high wind is not the sort of thing one might expect to learn at school, but roofing and tiling is a popular addition to the curriculum at the Nicolson Institute.

A TINY state school on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides is more expensive than Scotland's most exclusive private school when it comes to educating pupils.