We need to rationalise

THE independent panel looking at the possible rebuild of La Mare de Carteret School is absolutely right.

Guernsey does need one fewer secondary school.

There's more than one reason why such rationalisation makes perfect sense.

Firstly, as the panel points out, our post-11 schools would then be rather bigger. Obviously that would deliver cost efficiencies which are becoming more and more relevant. The days when Guernsey could afford to throw cash at its services because money was no object and we liked to do things differently are long gone. Getting best value for money must be the key consideration in everything the States does if we want to avoid huge increases in taxation.

Even more importantly, slightly larger schools will provide a better educational experience. No one is talking about the sort of mega-comprehensives with 2,000 pupils or more that we sometimes see in the UK. That wouldn't be desirable. But on the other side of the coin, small schools can limit choice, curriculum and social interaction.

There is a 'goldilocks' size for a school which is just right and it's somewhat larger than the current set-up in Guernsey. I know the federation concept seeks to improve subject choice within our relatively small schools, but it would be so much easier with one fewer.

Lastly we have the island's demographics. The debate this week on taxes, benefits and pensions is mainly driven by the fact that in future a far higher percentage of Guernsey's population will be elderly. Logically that means a far smaller percentage will be young. So, barring a huge leap in our total population, the island will have fewer people of child-bearing age and fewer children. Obviously that has huge implications for future school provision.

So I totally support having only three States secondary schools – and it's not the first time I've taken that stance. Fourteen years ago when the States debated the future of secondary education those of us opposed to the Torode amendment warned the island was going down the wrong path for two reasons.

Firstly because keeping the outdated and damaging 11-plus system made no sense in the 21st century. Long gone were the days when we had to separate our children into the minority who would 'work with their heads' and the majority who would 'work with their hands'.

My second reason for opposing the 'Torode alternative' was that it required more schools and would therefore be more expensive. Remember, the proposal from Education at the time was for three 11-16 schools and a post-16 college. Four establishments in total. By contrast, the successful amendment resulted in three 11-16 schools, one 11-18 school and a College of Further Education. Five in total.

I was convinced that was one too many for both educational and financial reasons. Fourteen years later, after spending squillions of pounds on Education's capital programme, that's now been confirmed by the independent panel. Hardly a surprise given Education's proposals back in 2001 had the backing of just about every head teacher in Guernsey. What a disastrous decision.

Of course the big question for the States if they do accept the panel's findings is how on earth they move from a set-up with four secondary schools to one with three?

After all, we already have two new secondary schools and a Grammar School building still in good nick. The obvious/cheapest answer would be just not to rebuild La Mare and to expand the other schools instead. But that would mean giving up the most flexible site and one in a highly populated area. We really wouldn't want to start from here.

In considering this conundrum I find myself in total agreement with Deputy Lyndon Trott. That's not a statement you'll hear me make every day of the week, but he's dead right. The first thing Guernsey needs to do is decide what sort of post-11 and post-16 education systems it wants in future. I suspect the outcomes Deputy Trott and I would like to see from such a review are diametrically opposite. But I can't fault his logic in pointing out that these decisions will profoundly affect the school provision Guernsey needs.

To illustrate that point, let me set out a few of the many ways Guernsey could move from having five States secondary/tertiary establishments to four. You'll see that they are very different depending on the system of education the island chooses.

1. Keep the current system but don't build La Mare. This is probably the cheapest option, although the other schools might need to be expanded at an unknown cost.

2. Keep the current system and build La Mare. This would mean one of the other post-11 schools was surplus to requirements. It could then be given over to the CFE to save the cost of rebuilding on the Coutanchez site – but of course it wouldn't be a purpose-built CFE.

3. Build La Mare. Keep selection at 11 but create a post-16 college amalgamating the Grammar School 6th form and the CFE. The most logical way of doing this would be to use one of the surplus secondary school sites, probably the current Grammar School site because it's the most central and already has post-16 accommodation. That would mean the new 11-16 Grammar School moving elsewhere, maybe Les Beaucamps as it's the hardest school to extend.

4. Scrap selection at 11. Don't build La Mare. Expand the other the schools sites to create three decent-sized comprehensive schools. Then decide if each school will offer A-levels or if all pupils will still come together at 16.

5. Scrap selection at 11. Build La Mare. Give one of the current sites (probably Footes Lane) over to a post-16 college offering both A-levels and the sort of vocational courses on offer at the CFE.

These are just five of dozens of possibilities, but given that we know Education is due to report on the future of selection later this year it seems madness to put the cart before the horse. Nor should the final decision be driven purely by consideration of the best type of 11-16 education for Guernsey.

Getting post-16 provision right is equally important. What I loved about Education's proposals back in 2001 was the flexibility it gave students to mix A-levels with the more 'vocational' courses on offer at the CFE instead of having to make an artificial binary choice. I am still convinced that such an approach is ideal, so at this stage my instinctive choice is as follows.

• Three comprehensive 11-16 schools at La Mare, Les Beaucamps and St Sampson’s.

• A new post-16 college replacing the Grammar School sixth form centre and the CFE at Footes Lane. If the site is too small, the campus could include the former St Peter Port school site which already has the performing arts centre.

• Release the current CFE site for much-needing housing, saving the cost of rebuilding it and using some of that cash to adapt the Foots Lane campus instead.

• Reduce the number of special place holders at the colleges from 23 a year to, say, 20 to reflect falling school rolls.

I know others will regard my dream as a nightmare.

What we can surely all agree on is that we need to know where we are going before deciding which path to take.