There are no plans to axe any of the island’s rural schools, Education Minister Dr Alex Allinson has pledged.

The minister said there was ’no policy to close rural schools’ and education chiefs were keen to ’maximise the facilities they can provide to the local communities’.

He was responding to a Tynwald question last week about whether there would be a review of catchment policy for the island’s rural schools.

It was posed by Daphne Caine (Garff) who expressed concern that falling pupil numbers in some of the rural schools could lead to their demise, unless the policy for catchment - the geographical area from which a school takes its pupils - was reviewed.

Dr Allinson (pictured), who succeeded Graham Cregeen as education minister earlier this month, said there was ’no catchment policy as such’ but the catchment areas were reviewed annually.

’We are aware that some rural schools are based in areas where the age profiles of the community have changed and the numbers enrolling in some rural schools seem to be decreasing,’ he said.

’The department’s policy is to manage catchment areas to ensure that rural schools remain viable.’

That management would be in the form of ’flexibility and listening to the local headteachers and the local communities, to make sure we achieve the best outcomes for those local schools’.

Dr Allinson said he planned to obtain the views of head teachers.

Mr Allinson announced on Sunday that schools would close for most pupils from Tuesday this week because of coronavirus. Some schools are staying open for vulnerable students and the children of key workers.