Every school child is to have the opportunity to visit Scotland’s iconic historic sites such as the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, First Minister Alex Salmond says in a special Burns Day message filmed at the newly opened museum in Alloway, Ayrshire.

Mr Salmond also highlighted the work of Scotland’s new Makar Liz Lochhead who pays her own tribute to the national bard in the message by reciting her favourite piece of Burns poetry, To A Mouse.

Watch the video:

The Heritage Education Travel Subsidy Scheme has been increased by almost 20 per cent to £150,000 to help with transport costs for any schools visiting:

Any of Historic Scotland’s Properties in Care

National Trust for Scotland sites at Bannockburn, Culloden, and Alloway

New Lanark World Heritage site

The FM said:

Alloway in Ayrshire, the setting for Tam o’ Shanter and now home to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum that officially opened just last Friday. This wonderful new museum houses the largest Burns collection in the world, with over 5,000 original exhibits – everything from the poet’s waistcoat buttons to his love letters.

This new museum cost £21 million, and it is worth every penny even in these tough times. Not only will it quickly become one of the great tourist attractions in Scotland, but our ambition is that every school child in the country will have the opportunity to visit and be touched by Robert Burns. Young Scots should leave here with a new pride and understanding, not just in our national poet, but in themselves too.

Burns is celebrated everywhere from Beijing to San Francisco, it’s as well to remember it was the people of Ayrshire who first gave him to the world. Scores of them – hundreds of them – subscribed to the first Kilmarnock Edition of his poems, the book that made it all happen for him and therefore for us.

These supporters, living in small towns, were literate, educated, interested in new ideas – because Scotland then as now had a system of free education. You see the most important thing about Robert Burns, is not that he was a heaven taught ploughman who was struck by a bolt of lightning one day in the fields and started to produce inspired poetry. The most important thing about Robert Burns is – he was an educated man. And the most important thing about Scotland is that Scotland then was the only country in the world where somebody of Burns status in life would have been an educated man. And that is why we must always preserve the right to free education in this country.

So let’s salute Robert Burns, in this Burns Season together with all the ordinary Scots folk who inspired him, who still keep his memory alive – the immortal memory of Robert Burns.

Tour the new museum:

Plus: Discover how you can read the full works of Robert Burns with a new free iphone app from the Scottish Government.