Delaying Les Ozouets ‘risks derailing education system’

Ahead of next week’s appearance before the Scrutiny Management Committee, ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen fired a warning shot across critics of her committee’s plans, who would wish to see the Ozouets project pushed back, or even cancelled, at the States capital prioritisation debate due in September.

‘Our committee has acknowledged concerns from certain States members who consistently seem stuck in the past, opposing the principle of fairness in providing an excellent education for all post-16 students that our new model offers,’ she said.

‘But make no mistake, derailing this project risks derailing our education system – and I do not say that lightly. We cannot keep looking backwards – we must move forwards.’

Deputy Dudley-Owen said that the committee hoped to be able to appoint a contractor – it has looked locally, in Jersey and in the UK – within a few months of States’ confirmation to progress the post-16 campus at Les Ozouets, and was still planning to open the campus in September 2026.

New staffing structures for three 11-16 high schools and the post-16 campus are being rolled out and ESC intends that the new schools will be open by September 2025, with a sixth-form centre operating from La Mare de Carteret for a year from then, at a cost of £141,000.

Deputy Dudley-Owen said investment in post-16 education was ‘long overdue’.

‘Recently buildings have become a far more important part of the conversation that they should be, because we are simply running out of buildings that can reasonably continue to be used for teaching and learning.’