Removing education from local authority control would help alleviate the struggles rural schools are facing in teacher recruitment, disinvestment and falling rolls, a former leader has said.
Bruce Robertson, who served as director of education at Highland Council for 10 years, said it was "as important as health” and should be managed in the same way with individual boards and local members appointed.
He said Highland councillors needed to be "braver in making tough decisions" including questioning if it was right to build new schools within three miles of each other.
Later this week the council will discuss plans to close Duror Primary, near Ballachulish, which has a roll of four pupils and another close to Newtonmore, which caters for just two children.
"In the case of education there’s already a postcode lottery across Scotland regarding what pupils actually get from their councils which has resulted in large variations of what really should be a national entitlement,” said Mr Robertson, who is a visiting professor at the Confucius Institute for Scotland's Schools at Strathclyde University.
"This will get worse with the significant cuts to education about to happen.
"I'd like to see education removed nationally from local government control and education boards created as part of a national system such as health.
"Education is a really important national function, as health is.
"Reducing the number of education authorities to something like ten education boards would be beneficial I believe on a number of fronts.
"I think what I personally would go for is a Highland or potentially a Highland and Islands board. And by the islands, I do mean the Western Isles - Orkney and Shetland are so different."
He said there was a lot of "duplication of functions" in 32 authorities - funding that could be redirected to schools.
