Who knows if federation is good idea

Education's wafer-thin nine-page report is heavy on the idealism behind a collaborative approach, where all secondary schools work as one, and light on the practicalities.

The department argues the case for collaboration over competition very well. A competitive structure would be a free market, with no selection and where schools fight for the best students.

While that can work in a larger jurisdiction, it would not work here.

Nevertheless, parents, teachers and students may feel that the department has not fully thought through federation before going public.

Merits of the collaborative approach aside, the board has effectively told the director of Education and the five head teachers, 'this is the model we want, you go away and make it work'.

It acknowledges the dangers in that: 'Until there is clarity about the structures, roles and responsibilities with the federation, there is the possibility that staff may become unsettled…'

The report provides detail on changes to school start times but fails to explain how teachers are going to be shared across the sector, how head teachers can have greater control when they need the agreement of their fellow four heads, the director and a committee, and how a wider curriculum is to be achieved for all.

The document is steeped in establishment-speak, which detracts from what could be an excellent idea – if only someone would explain it fully.

The decision not to take the matter to the States for scrutiny is all the more disturbing for that. While the department is right to say it's an operational, not political, matter, so was shutting St Sampson's Infants and St Andrew's Primary.

Yet it handed that decision to the States.

Islanders will ask what the difference is. Both transform the landscape of education.

Perhaps the debate over school closures, despite ending in victory, was a little too bruising.