Roffey – ‘three reasons to halt ESC’s sixth form plan’

In 2021, the States backed proposals from Education, Sport & Culture for 11-16 schools on three sites and a separate sixth form centre at Les Ozouets alongside The Guernsey Institute.

Deputies will vote this week on whether to provide funding for the new model, which now has an estimated cost of more than £130m., including digital improvements.

They will also vote on an amendment submitted by Deputies Aidan Matthews and Peter Roffey to pause the scheme. They hope to stop ESC from moving the sixth form centre to La Mare de Carteret and then to Les Ozouets at a later date.

‘When the States approved the current policy for secondary education provision a couple of years back, I thought at the time it was crazy, in terms of educational provision and future revenue costs, but being a democrat I accepted what I regarded as a poor decision,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘Since then, things have changed.

‘First, the capital costs of the project have escalated.

‘Second, it must have become clear to all States members that our revenue challenges make the adoption of an ineffective model madness.

‘Third, and most importantly, the plan has changed to one of temporarily moving the sixth form centre to a standalone facility at La Mare.

‘This for me was the final straw. I can’t endorse it without an attempt to move back towards a more sensible policy, both educationally and financially.’

ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen said that halting her committee’s ‘well-matured’ plans would be ‘catastrophic for Guernsey and have far-reaching effects’.

‘Jobs have been offered. Jobs have been accepted. 263 people in our secondary phase have been ring-fenced for jobs. A considerable number of those have been offered and have accepted positions,’ said Deputy Dudley-Owen.

‘They have certainty now.

‘To stop what we’re doing now unpicks all that and reintroduces uncertainty for those individuals and also for students.’

Deputy Dudley-Owen was elected ESC president in 2020, a few months after leading a requete which halted the development of a previous education model backed by the States in votes in 2018 and 2019.

‘I do take Deputy Dudley-Owen’s point about the impact of uncertainty and delay,’ said Deputy Roffey.

‘Indeed, it made me think long and hard about agreeing to be the seconder of this amendment, even though these comments are a bit rich coming from Deputy Dudley-Owen, who was responsible for creating uncertainty and delay in spades in the last Assembly.

‘In the end, I decided that, regrettable though a short period of further delay is, it still has to be better than adopting a deeply flawed system for generations of Guernsey children to come.’

The amendment from Deputies Matthews and Roffey directs ESC not to sign a contract for the construction of any part of the planned post-16 campus at Les Ozouets. It is unclear why they included The Guernsey Institute in their amendment, but they insisted the new further and higher education centre would not need to be significantly delayed if ESC quickly accepted that it should be developed alone.

In a survey of secondary school staff carried out in 2021, only 9% said they backed ESC’s plan.

But director of education Nick Hynes said most staff in schools now wanted the committee’s model ‘to move ahead as quickly as possible’.

‘As part of the change management process, we’ve got officers working alongside colleagues in all our secondary schools on a weekly basis, talking to staff and feeding back their views on the programme and what could be improved across the individual structures.

‘They’re telling us that we just need to move on and get it over the line,’ he said.