Local management one of governance options

Andrea Dudley-Owen, the president of Education, Sport & Culture, has underlined her commitment to update the 1970 Education Law which includes how schools are run.

‘The workstream to update the Education Law has not been halted.

‘The committee has already stated publicly its commitment to bringing our policy proposals to the States within the next 18 months.

‘These proposals will include recommendations to support a range of governance options for our schools and local management is certainly not off the table.

‘We have looked at the substantial pieces of work we inherited from the previous committee and prioritised them for delivery to the States in this first year of the new States term.

‘The future direction of secondary education and the Guernsey Institute are both long awaited by all the community and key to Guernsey’s recovery and future success.’

The issue of devolved governance has come under the spotlight recently after draft proposals for the overhaul, which were drawn up by the previous committee, were leaked to the Guernsey Press.

Denis Mulkerrin, a former head teacher, has today added to the debate in a letter to the Guernsey Press.

In a statement last night, Deputy Dudley-Owen said that her committee wanted to do things properly.

‘The previous committee took office part way through a political term and undertook to deliver some very large projects in a tight time frame and were arguably under-resourced to do so.

‘They were unable to complete all their policy commitments before the end of the term.

‘As such, when we took office we picked up a sense of initiative overload and a profession that could not keep up with the proposed pace of change, particularly given the demands Covid-19.

‘Our committee is determined to “eat the whole elephant” during the course of this term, but knows it can only be done one bite at a time.

‘It has seen the indigestion caused by biting off more than can be chewed.’