GCSE results: we have a right to know
IN SOME ways, I'm reluctant to join the debate over Education's refusal to release data on how local schools compare with those in the UK when it comes to GCSEs. Firstly, because I have written a lot about education recently, from school uniforms to college funding and RE, and I'm reluctant to become a one-trick pony.
IN SOME ways, I'm reluctant to join the debate over Education's refusal to release data on how local schools compare with those in the UK when it comes to GCSEs. Firstly, because I have written a lot about education recently, from school uniforms to college funding and RE, and I'm reluctant to become a one-trick pony.
By the way, I was told off by an esteemed former head teacher over my recent article on religious education. He pointed out that youngsters needed to know about the various belief systems around the world to understand international events. I don't disagree. In fact, I'd expand that to include all major philosophies, both religious and secular. My point was to object to calls for more specifically Christian assemblies and teaching. I'll write out 100 times, 'I must convey my meaning more clearly'.
My second reason for wanting to shy away from GCSE-gate is that my instinct when I spot a mass feeding frenzy is to walk away from it. However, the principles at stake here are so important that they demand some comment.
The first thing to say is that it's understandable for Education to be concerned over the possible misinterpretation of the data. For instance, it would be quite unfair to compare the exam results for Guernsey's high schools with comprehensive schools in the UK.
Why? Because comprehensives are just that. They include pupils, who, if they were in Guernsey, would have 'passed to the Grammar School' or won scholarships to the colleges. So of course they are going to achieve higher exam results.
What should be quite possible, and fair, is to compare the results for the whole cohort of island children taking GCSEs with the national average. This won't tell us which individual schools are performing best, as measured by 'value added', but it will tell us how our whole education system is performing. That's something that both parents and taxpayers have a right to know.
In theory, Guernsey should be easily out-performing the national average when it comes to children getting five GCSEs at AA-C grade, including maths and English. Our schools have massive advantages. They are better resourced, with lower pupil-to-teacher ratios. They are dealing with far fewer children from deprived backgrounds. We have nowhere near as many children for whom English is not their first language. The list goes on.
I'm certainly not saying that our schools are not taking full advantage of these benefits to achieve outstanding results. I simply don't know the outcomes, as measured by this standard criterion, and neither do you. I do know there is much excellent work going on by many motivated and able teachers. But so long as the Education Department refuses to release comparable data, we can't know if that is producing the sort of results we would expect.
Clearly, we have the right to be able to make that comparison.
What would be very dangerous is to fall into the complacency of repeating the mantra that Guernsey's school system is better than the UK's simply out of
long-established habit. Just because something is said often enough doesn't make it true. Jersey had a rude awakening in that respect recently, when its education authorities were forced to release information it would have preferred to keep under wraps.
If our own Education Department continues its blackout in this respect, then the cynics will be bound to draw the worst possible conclusions. They will point out that, until recently, it was easy for Guernsey to outperform the UK when it came to GCSEs because over here, lots of pupils left school at 15, while the UK had a school-leaving age of 16. That was bound to skew statistics in Guernsey's favour.
Now that there's a level playing field, it seems the authorities have gone very coy over allowing comparisons to be made. 'What,' the cynics will ask, 'have they got to hide?'.
I have no reason whatsoever to suspect they have anything to hide. But I do question their refusal to be open with figures, which can't be hard to produce. If the comparison is good, then celebrate it. If it's not, then why not be open and address the problem?
I really hope the department changes its mind soon because a bunker mentality rarely achieves anything. These figures will be winkled out of them somehow, sooner or later.
Any deputy fancy asking a question in the States?
