Education fails 11-plus duty of care
THE measure of an organisation is often best judged by what it does when things go wrong, not when all is rosy. Every business or government body makes mistakes at some stage and has to pick up the pieces. Some do it much better than others.
When a mechanical fault led to one of the Travel Trident ferries hitting the Cambridge Steps this weekend and several passengers were hurt, the company's managing director did more than just issue a press release. Instead, he rushed straight up to the hospital to apologise in person and offer whatever help he could.
At the other end of the scale is Education's disastrous response to an administrative error over the 11-plus allocations.
The initial mistake was a bad one, there is no doubt about that. Anyone who has been through the 11-plus selection system as a parent or pupil knows the terrible tension of the fateful day when the envelope arrives and weeks of waiting come to an end. It is too important a moment for there to be any chance of an error.
But in this case, the checking procedures were not up to scratch and the mistake went unnoticed until too late.
The tale told today of what that child and her family were subsequently put through is, however, a much greater black mark against Education.
For the department to compound the initial error and worsen the family's nightmare by again offering the place at Ladies' College only to retract it for the second time was a cruel blow.
And to subsequently find no way of compensating the family or easing their troubles shows a stubborn adherence to rules that were already in tatters thanks to the initial error.
That intransigence brought the lawyers into play and any hope of an amicable settlement was lost.
But it should be remembered that at the centre of this all is an 11-year-old girl, who, according to the family, has not been offered an explanation or a face-to-face apology.
The 11-plus can be a gruelling experience for children even when procedures are followed. Education owes this child a duty of care to ensure that any lasting damage is minimised.
