Cymdeithas yr Iaith have accused Carmarthenshire's Education Officers of being 'up to their old tricks' by once again attempting to stop any county-wide debate about their controversial 'Modernising Educational Provision Strategy' which could lead to the closure of up to 40 Welsh-medium village schools in the County.

Consultation ends this week on the County's draft "Single Education Plan" - the first two sections of which deal in generalities and abstract aims whereas the third section (section 3.4) re-iterates the unpopular MEP and other strategies. The officers have issued to Governors and other bodies a Response Form asking for reaction to the "Key Qestions" which are all confined to the first two general sections and invite no response at all to the MEP.Cymdeithas Education Spokesperson Ffred Ffransis commented " By including the MEP in a section of the Single Education Plan - without drawing attention to it - the Officers obviously hope to be able to claim at a later stage that it has been out for county-wide consultation. They are up to their old tricks again in the same way that they claim that references to 'fewer school places' in the Schools Organisation Plan of 2001 gave them a mandate to take out dozens of our Welsh-medium village schools."He added "They have invited responses only to the first two sections of the Single Education Plan which contain merely abstract and pious declarations of value, aims, joint-expectations and key activities. There is no basic linkage between these stated values and the MEP which is repeated in Section 3.4. In fact, we have argued in our response to the Council that the MEP will undermine the very values of social inclusion, community education and bilingualism by centralising education and taking schools out of communities."