Questions the minister did not ask
THE election of a new minister, the resignation of the director of education, the appointment of a new chief officer and a board committed to Mulkerrin and restoring confidence in the department mean that the island now has the opportunity to get its Education service back on track.
THE election of a new minister, the resignation of the director of education, the appointment of a new chief officer and a board committed to Mulkerrin and restoring confidence in the department mean that the island now has the opportunity to get its Education service back on track.
That has to be the priority. Too much time has already been lost and too many children denied the best possible start in life as a result of Guernsey adopting an out-of-date system with Politburo-style control vested in the centre and school heads denied autonomy and accountability for the performance of their students.
There also has to be a focus on value for money and stripping out 15 years' worth of bureaucratic growth at Grange House and reinvesting at least some of that money back into the schools and the learning environment.
Another priority is cleansing the culture within Guernsey's second biggest area of public expenditure that views anyone expressing criticism, however mild, as the enemy.
Sadly, the former minister, in her resignation statement yesterday, demonstrated how far down that road things have gone.
Politicians past and present generally do not link hands with this newspaper – not unless there is a common cause uniting them. And that coming together has been caused by more than a decade of concerns about the performance – however you care to define that – of Education.
Because concerns were not adequately addressed, an issue became a crisis and children and taxpayers have suffered as a result.
When the former minister says the truth should come out, we concur. The truth about:
How, why and under whose watch Education was allowed to deviate from best practice to the detriment of academic performance,
Staff turnover in the last 15 years, about compromise gagging orders and the funding of any settlements,
Votes of confidence and why they might have been needed in the director and if he received public funds after threatening a deputy with legal action, and
How the leader of a department the performance of which has been so roundly criticised in an independent report appears unaccountable.
All questions the minister could have asked when she had the chance – but would not.
