Education has failed its children
THERE is only one word to sum up Education's approach to GCSE results: deceit.
THERE is only one word to sum up Education's approach to GCSE results: deceit.
For years islanders have been confident that their education system is to be envied, one of the many reasons people can be glad to live in Guernsey.
Over the past few months that confidence has taken blow upon blow as the true state of island schools became clear.
Yesterday, the last wall of secrecy came down to reveal a terrible truth: two out of three of the island's high schools would be classed as failures in the UK.
It has taken months of robust questioning from this newspaper and Deputy Jane Stephens to get Education to admit to its failings. But even now, with the evidence obvious to all, it continues to bluster.
Forget the platitudes about trying to protect the children. This deception is all about protecting the bureaucrats and weak politicians who for years have let a falsehood be accepted as truth.
Even the Policy Council bought into the lie. Just this month it declared that the island's 'excellent education system' must not be put at risk.
Excellent if you attend one of the colleges or the Grammar perhaps. However, the chasm between them and the failing high schools is simply unacceptable.
The figures are staggering when compared with the UK. Some schools there have a majority of pupils for whom English is a second language, who live in chronically deprived areas of high unemployment and terrible social abuse. And they still outperform our schools.
Education will say it is damaging to the pupils' morale to have the results laid bare. No, what is damaging has been the deception that has undermined education policy for years.
How much more quickly might States members have poured money into the rebuilding programme if they had seen the real picture? Had they known the truth, deputies would surely have changed farcical housing licence laws which rob the island of good teachers just as they start to settle in.
It is not the children who have failed. It is the Education Department which has failed them.
