Education ‘must show better way, not create policy vacuum’

ESC announced at the weekend that it would be seeking approval to press ahead with its review without having to compare its ideas with the previously-suggested one school across two sites model.

That would require the States to rescind previous resolutions to review various models against the two-school concept and instead to compare the models with what is in operation today – three high schools and a non-selective grammar school.

During last week’s question time Education president Andrea Dudley-Owen, whose requete led to the review, was challenged to provide an update on what the committee was doing, with the first question from Yvonne Burford asking if any models had been dropped from the review.

‘If the committee does not intend to follow the resolutions that came out of the pause and review then it is quite right that they should ask the Assembly to rescind them,’ said Deputy Burford. ‘However, we need to know what will replace them before voting.’

While preferring a three-school model, she advocated waiting for the outcome of the review to make a fully-informed choice about which three-school model would be best.

She was puzzled as to how the current review, instigated by Deputy Dudley-Owen and which was close to completion, could be discarded: ‘It seems rather curious that the committee wish to bin it, as it would seem the quickest and most evidence-based way of coming to an informed conclusion.

‘Deputy Dudley-Owen’s comments about the financial situation make it vital to transparently compare the costs of each model. Using the two-school model as the baseline for comparisons was the fundamental basis of her requete.

‘The committee’s statement that they are including the current four-school transitional arrangement as the baseline instead, without even allowing for the rebuilding of La Mare, does not make any sense as it is not a sustainable model in its own right.’

Deputy Burford was also concerned about the committee potentially looking at reducing space standards or increasing class sizes, and she said that while the two-school model, with a class size of 24, was likely to be at the lower end of the cost range, she would be reluctant to see larger class sizes suggested in an effort to make a three-school model financially viable.

‘This is another reason why I think the best course of action is to just finish the review,’ she said.

Deputy Peter Roffey recently submitted written questions about the review to ESC. ‘I am very surprised and concerned by their “clear the decks” statement,’ he said.

‘I suppose my message to ESC is: “Come up with a better way forward and I will happily throw away the current roadmap but don’t jump into a policy vacuum”.’

Like Deputy Burford, he was particularly worried about a reference to ‘new financial realities’: ‘That suggests the committee may be considering cuts in educational provision in order to live within a very constrained budget. That may well be unavoidable in the current circumstances but it makes it even more crucial that we look at the running costs of all of the possible models in order to select the most cost effective in terms of revenue costs.’

ESC also said work on a new education law has been de-prioritised, and on this matter Deputy Roffey said: ‘I despair. Repeated committees have put this on the back burner for decades. It is woefully out of date. ESC plead “too much change too quickly” but I would argue our education system has suffered from too little change for too long.’