Education plans delayed to 2025
GUERNSEY'S new secondary education and post-16 model has been delayed by a year due to construction costs and overly tight deadlines.
The project will focus Guernsey's secondary education at Les Beaucamps, St Sampson's and Les Varendes secondary school, with the Guernsey Institute post-16 education at Les Ozouets.
The changeover had been due to happen in 2024.
But that has now been pushed back to 2025.
This means that anticipated savings created by consolidating to a single post-16 campus will not now be realised until 2026. There might also be additional costs associated with extending the programme.
Education, Sport & Culture president Andrea Dudley-Owen was disappointed by the change and had reluctantly agreed to it.
'This is frustrating primarily as it is an additional year before the benefits of the new system will begin to be felt, but I am satisfied that a huge amount of effort has gone in to looking at everything possible to maintain the initial timeline and this really is a case of recognising the external factors being outside of anyone’s control,' she said.
'It is well-known that the construction industry locally is under pressure and very much in demand, not least via other States projects. While the large firms we’ve engaged with outlined plans that would have completed construction of the new post-16 campus by our original target date of September 2024, the reality is they also raised material concerns about pressures to achieve that date. The two-year construction programme would have needed to be completely seamless with nothing going awry – and we all know that is nigh-on impossible, even for some of the much smaller construction projects.'
She said this was the best option for the students, staff and public funds.
'While incurring any additional cost, or a reduction in realised savings, is not unimportant, in the wider context it must be remembered that the combined build programmes of the new facilities for The Guernsey Institute and reorganisation of secondary education is a £100m. initiative and contingency costs have been budgeted for in the capital sum approved by the States,' she said.
'It is much more important that we get it right rather than rushing to meet an arbitrary deadline and introducing unnecessary risks. Lengthening the timeframe for the build also enables us to work with whichever contractor is selected to keep costs down, rather than potentially facing increased costs associated with rushing to meet an earlier completion date.
'Most importantly, the committee’s early decision to adjust the timeline for moving to the new buildings and to maintain the current transitional arrangements for students leaving primary school, provides certainty and at the same time minimises disruption, as far as possible, for students and staff. This has been, and will remain, a key focus of all members of our committee throughout.'
It is expected that The Guernsey Institute staff and students will be able to move into the purpose-built facilities in early 2025 or during the Easter holidays.
Education has been consulting with local firms tendering for the Les Ozouets work, which said that they could complete the build by September 2024 in theory, but the timeline would be tight, so that any delay outside of their control such as bad weather, sourcing materials or access to specialist equipment, could result in missing the handover date.
That led ESC to decide it was better to delay and give students certainty
For more information visit www.Ourfuture.gg/education.
