PUTTING swimming lessons back on the curriculum of Fife's primary schools will be a "huge challenge" due to pool closures, lack of funds and spiralling energy bills.

Last week's full council meeting was told of the factors standing in the way of the "vital life skill" being taught to pupils.

While keen to see it happen, SNP councillor Auxi Barrera said there were "undoubted challenges" and stated: "In my ward, Dunfermline North, there are four primary schools, in the city of Dunfermline there are 17 primary schools and in South West Fife there are 10 primary schools who need to use Carnegie Leisure Centre swimming pool.

"That's potentially more than 200 primary classes trying to get swimming lessons in the same swimming pool.

"The Carnegie centre needs to keep slots for private lessons and public swimming at the same time.

"I personally think, logistically, it will be a huge challenge if or when swimming lessons become part of the curriculum."

Education spokesperson, Labour councillor Cara Hilton, said: "Everybody here will agree how vital it is that every child in Fife is able to access swimming lessons and leave primary school able to swim.

"I learned to swim thanks to free school swimming lessons, it was a really important part of the school curriculum and it's a shame that has been lost.

"Unfortunately across Scotland we are seeing swimming pools close and others threatened with closure, many of them in our schools.

"We know one of the biggest factors is underfunding of council budgets and also spiralling energy bills and these are putting young lives at risk."

The debate was sparked by Dunfermline Lib Dem councillor Aude Boubaker-Calder, who submitted a motion for swimming to be re-introduced to Fife primary schools.

She said there were 58 accidental drownings in Scotland in 2021, the highest rate of the UK nations, and added: "Some of them could have been avoided if they had been taught two vital skills: swimming and being able to react accordingly to an emergency situation in the water.

"Yet our children are not taught to swim in PE classes in school."

Cllr Boubaker-Calder said it was removed from the curriculum in 2015 when the Scottish Government pulled funding from a £1.7m programme to support school swimming lessons.

Fellow Lib Dem councillor Al Clark warned: "We've seen an increase in incidents in the waters around Fife with 462 call-outs by the coastguard with 103 rescues and sadly nine deaths reported in Fife and Tayside in 2021 alone.

"Whilst this isn't all related to non-swimmers, by not supporting children to learn the basics of swimming this has the potential to increase."

Cllr Walker said that if they "de-politicised" the debate there was "little for us to disagree about", with acceptance that swimming is a vital life skill, with physical and mental health benefits, and ideally every child would learn before they leave primary school.

But he added: "There are undoubted challenges in implementing what the motion is asking for.

"When the council took the budget saving on swimming in 2015, it wasn't purely for financial reasons but also logistical reasons, such as lack of available swimming instructors during the day, transport costs and in some cases transport distances and the need for parent helpers and pupils support assistants to support classes going out of school.

"Despite those challenges we can always aspire to improve so we have no objections to exploring the council's options further."

Councillors agreed a "unified" approach, calling for a report to look at funding and how swimming could become part of the curriculum.