Mulkerrin: worse than was thought
IT IS difficult to read the Mulkerrin review of education services in Guernsey without a growing sense of anger, verging on rage.
IT IS difficult to read the Mulkerrin review of education services in Guernsey without a growing sense of anger, verging on rage.
The systemic failure of a £75m. organisation to give island children their right – a quality learning environment that positively assists them to reach their full potential – is bad enough.
Worse is the equally systemic manner in which the failings of the Education Department have been ignored, glossed over and, as we reported this week, covered up.
Because this was allowed to happen and because deputies failed to overrule officials who were intent on preventing the issue from being tackled, the States of Guernsey has let down hundreds of youngsters and wasted millions of pounds worth of taxpayers' funds.
And this has not happened by accident. The Education Department has connived over maintaining a regime guaranteed to produce poor academic results and squander public funds by concentrating power at the centre.
Denis Mulkerrin's devastating report also reveals the real reason why the highly-respected head of the Grammar School resigned: 'The Education Department's recruiting and staffing procedures… mean that I have to run the school with one hand tied behind my back.'
Education's raison d'etre was control, particularly over what messages were allowed out. Not only has it misled Guernsey people generally, it has specifically lied to the media in response to direct questions.
The indictment against the department is truly shocking and the harm inflicted on childhood schooling enormous.
Readers who have followed our investigations into the many failings of the department need not ask where the blame for all this lies. It happened on the watch of one individual and under the scrutiny of respective political boards.
As is now clear from her ill-judged 'Education is not failing, everyone just hates Derek' letter, published here on Monday, the minister has been dreadfully suckered – just as her friends and colleagues warned she would be.
The failures were also at the centre of government, for first ignoring the warning signs and then trying to conceal them.
If anything positive is to emerge from the wreckage, it has to be the speedy implementation of the Mulkerrin recommendations.
