‘Children suffering due to way schools are run’
THE island’s education leaders have been urged to give more power to head teachers to run schools and reduce control from officials at Sir Charles Frossard House, so that children are not let down by unnecessary bureaucracy.
Denis Mulkerrin, who carried out a landmark review of schools 10 years ago following revelations of poor GCSE results, has given his views in a letter to the Guernsey Press.
One of the key findings of his review was that school governing bodies and local management of schools should be established, but ten years on they still do not exist.
In the letter, Mr Mulkerrin described the current system as totally centralised, out of date and bureaucratic.
His belief is that pupils deserve much better.
‘Why has Guernsey retained an education structure that was kicked out in England over 30 years ago?
‘Why are there still no governing bodies in the island schools?
‘Why do Guernsey politicians continue to give such enormous power to a handful of senior civil servants in the island education department?
‘The real losers in all of this are of course the children of Guernsey – and that should not be allowed to happen.’
The previous Education, Sport & Culture committee drew up plans for devolved governance to schools within a new Education Law, but ran out of time to get the proposals through the States.
The draft policy letter was shared with all States members in the dying days of the last term, and last week a copy was leaked to the Guernsey Press.
In this month’s States meeting there is a proposal to rescind a previous commitment to devolve governance to schools, but in a statement last night current ESC president Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen stressed that work to update the Education Law had not been halted.
She said the committee wanted to prioritise the work on secondary schools and the Guernsey Institute, and were ‘working at pace not haste’.
Under a system of devolved power to schools, the head teachers and governing bodies would have responsibility for budgets, the hiring and firing of staff, facilities, and where resources need to be targeted for their specific cohorts.
Civil servants would be relegated to a more advisory and regulatory role.
Mr Mulkerrin, who was born and raised in Guernsey, worked as a head teacher in the UK and gained a reputation for turning around failing schools. He became a special advisor to the UK government, and was appointed CBE for services to education.
A former non-voting member of Guernsey’s Education Board, he resigned in 2014 in frustration at the delays in implementing his recommendations.
Seven years on, Mr Mulkerrin’s disappointment remains evident.
‘The ability of head teachers to run their schools with the support of a locally recruited board of governors has been proven by organisations such as Ofsted to be a key factor in improving school performance and pupil attainment.
‘LMS [local management of schools] has been a major success for over 30 years and today neither Labour nor Conservatives parties would want to change it.
‘Indeed, the top 100 state schools in England now achieve similar exam results to most of the leading independent schools.'
