PRIMARY schools will find out within weeks if they are to be hit by county council plans to tackle an alarming slump in pupil numbers across Kent.

County education chiefs have given a clear signal school closures will be needed as they strive to cut out 6,000 surplus places across Kent’s 472 primary schools by 2008.

Mergers of smaller schools will also be on the cards.

The most serious threat could face the 60 schools in the county with fewer than 100 pupils. As part of a wide-ranging blueprint for primary education, the county council says pupil numbers should not fall below that figure and where they do, they should remain open only when they can sustain four classes.

That places a serious question mark against one in seven primaries although the strategy states that small village rural schools will not close “unless there are very good reasons.”

Education chiefs stressed KCC had no “hit list” but admitted it faced “some very difficult decisions” if it was to address what was a national problem. The drop has been caused by the falling birth rate and couples either having fewer children or choosing to delay starting family.

Cllr Leyland Ridings (Con), KCC’s cabinet member for schools, said that if the authority did nothing, the number of surplus places would rise from around 12,000 now to close to 19,000 by 2010. That in turn would suck money away from schools who were full.

He said: “We have spare capacity in our schools that is twice what the Government’s guidelines suggest it ought to be. Our strategy will bring great rewards as well as presenting us with some very difficult decisions and even though we must act now, every decision will be taken with the interests of the school, community and parents and staff in mind.”

KCC’s education director Graham Badman said falling rolls meant other schools were losing £3million a year. “The cost of surplus places is borne by those schools that do not have them,” he said.