Ashford Community Hall held 400 people and five of the seven candidates from last weekend’s byelection, at a Monday meeting aimed to raise concerns about the future of the local education system.

Ashford, Bundarra and Emmaville central schools face losing their access to the Dubbo distance education program at the end of the year.

“The way we’re doing it now is just not going to be funded in the future, they’ve made that quite clear,” Ashford Central School principal Mick Lewis said.

Mr Lewis has been in an ongoing campaign for the Education Department to keep the Dubbo connection, but said he was less than optimistic about their chances.

“We were able to negotiate a year’s extension of the program through political action last year. A compromise staffing arrangement was given to the three schools, we’ve (already) had great difficulty getting the department to honour what they offered,” he said

“It’s created a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty in the communities and we’re not confident it will be supported in the future at all.”

Mr Lewis said by his calculation it would actually cost the government more to close down the program than it would to let it run.

“It adds up to $750,000 as opposed to $550,000, so the way I see it funding our program is saving the government about $200,000 a year. The logic of cutting it is just bureaucracy gone mad.”

Newly elected Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall and other candidates for last weekend’s byelection, Herman Beyersdorf, Jim Maher, Dora Koops and Katherine Nicholson attended the meeting and heard that unless there was a marked change of mindset at a federal and state level, the program which supports senior studies (years 11 and 12) for all three schools could be scrapped.

Deputy mayor of Armidale and Labor candidate Herman Beyersdorf said he thought it was a good meeting that showed the strength of the community.

“There was unanimous support for its retention and I must say in all fairness all candidates expressed the same view,” Mr Beyersdorf said.

Emmaville Central School is facing an equally uncertain future and when the Star contacted them in September 2012, the message was clear.

 “We’re all outraged, with ripple on effects this could close the town down,” Emmaville Parents and Citizens Association president Duncan Giles said.

“If this goes ahead we will possibly lose teachers, and lose even more if families move all their children.”