Any delay makes me shudder, Deputy Roffey tells parents
AN EMBATTLED Education, Sport & Culture committee put on a united front and showed they are not for turning at its first meeting with the parents of primary school children.
A day after a well-supported protest march, ESC was sticking to its guns.
Parents at the meeting expressed a number of concerns regarding issues such as space and special needs provision.
The meeting was nearly two hours old when a member of the audience asked for a reaction to the march.
To say that ESC has misgivings about a proposed halt to the two comprehensive schools would be an underestimate – one member, Peter Roffey, said any delay would be a disaster that would make him shudder.
‘I don’t think there is a solution that’s going to make everyone in Guernsey happy, and having looked at it in depth we’re convinced that educationally and for the sake of the students this is the best option, so we have to carry on selling it and trying to move the process forward.’
The leaders of a requete want a one-year pause on the transformation programme to allow other education models to be drawn up and compared alongside one another.
The requete points to the public outcry and the subtext is that requerants believe that Education is on an ideological mission with its plans.
However, there is uncertainty about which and how many education models they want investigated and the requerants have so far refrained from saying what is their favoured alternative.
Speaking after the meeting, Deputy Roffey thought it had been helpful to meet the parents.
‘It was really useful and there was always going to be mixed views. Some people came because they had entrenched critical views and they wanted to let us know, but I think more people came genuinely looking for answers to questions.
‘I think there was some really good engagement and of course this is one of a big series [of meetings] that we’re going to do and I’m encouraged that it’s not a waste of time and that we’re really able to get down into the depth of the issues in a way that just issuing press releases never will.’
