Les Ozouets campus’ future in limbo as it goes unfunded
AN ATTEMPT to keep the sixth form centre at Les Varendes was rejected yesterday morning – but it was a pyrrhic victory for the Education Committee as the States later voted against funding its £130m. plan to reorganise secondary and further education.
Members voted 16-22 against an amendment from Deputy Aidan Matthews which proposed that plans to redevelop Les Ozouets as a post-16 campus should continue to include The Guernsey Institute for further and higher education, but exclude a co-located Sixth Form Centre.
But the final outcome of the marathon debate on tax and capital spending leaves the Education Committee in limbo – with the support of the States to create a new post-16 campus but without the funding to pay for it.
Some opponents of Deputy Matthews’ amendment criticised him for reopening the question of the future education model in a debate on tax and capital spending.
The amendment reminded Policy & Resources president Peter Ferbrache of the film Groundhog Day and others starring Mickey Mouse.
‘Groundhog Day because we’re talking about the same things time after time after time. Mickey Mouse because that’s the way we’re behaving,’ said Deputy Ferbrache.
‘This amendment has got absolutely nothing to do with the Funding and Investment Plan. In his opening speech, Deputy Matthews spent 85% of his time talking about education.
‘If we delay, it will cost more. Let’s get on with it. We are where we are. We’ve got to get on with this. We owe it to the children of today and the children who will come through the system soon to give them decent places to be educated. We need to move this matter forward. We don’t need education policy on the hoof.’
P&R’s treasury lead, Deputy Mark Helyar, said Education, Sport & Culture was doing a good job and that changing the future model of secondary and further education again would prolong instability and encourage more parents to enrol children at the grant-aided colleges.
When ESC originally proposed its new model – three 11-16 schools and the post-16 campus – Simon Fairclough voted against it. But he could not support an amendment to halt it two years after it was agreed by the States.
‘If this amendment is successful, it will take us backwards, and in my view more money will be wasted,’ said Deputy Fairclough.
‘But this is about more than money and buildings. We have to support our teachers. On Wednesday of last week, we learned that staff turnover in the secondary phase has been around 20%. I asked education leaders and union representatives whether the course we were on had their support. The message I took away was that another change to the direction we’re heading in would be catastrophic in terms of recruiting and retaining teachers.’
Carl Meerveld was concerned that Deputy Matthews’ amendment would revive elements of the model of two 11-18 schools, which was approved and then paused by the previous States, before being abandoned by the current Assembly.
‘This amendment would result in a 1,200-student school at Les Varendes. You are looking at exactly the kind of scale of school that was proposed under the two-school model and roundly rejected by our population and educationalists,’ said Deputy Meerveld.
ESC president Andrea Dudley-Owen told the States that her committee had spoken to students who backed the plan for a post-16 campus which included both The Guernsey Institute and the sixth form centre.
‘They really like the idea of external shared spaces between The Guernsey Institute and the sixth form centre. That’s how they want to learn,’ said Deputy Dudley-Owen.
‘They support the vision of bringing skills and academic qualifications together on one campus. This generation no longer want to be segregated into the so-called bright academic ones who do A-levels and International Baccalaureate and the not-so-bright vocational ones who excel at training and trades. That type of outdated anathema thinking needs to be dismissed and disregarded from this Assembly.’
Deputy Dudley-Owen said that keeping the sixth form centre at Les Varendes, alongside an increasing number of students in the school’s younger year groups, would result in a poorer experience for students without significant additional investment to extend buildings.
She claimed that there was a high turnover of teachers at States secondary schools not because they disliked the committee’s new model but because of prolonged uncertainty about the future model. And she urged the States to stick to ESC’s model and provide the funding to build it.
‘We are on the starting blocks ready to go. It is in your hands, in this Assembly, to grant the funding to progress the campus build,’ she said.
How they voted on Deputy Matthews’ amendment to keep the sixth form centre at Les Varendes:
For (16): Deputies Burford, Bury, Cameron, De Lisle, de Sausmarez, Falla, Gabriel, Matthews, Oliver, Parkinson, Queripel, Roffey, Soulsby, St Pier, Taylor and Trott.
Against (22): Deputies Aldwell, Blin, Dudley-Owen, Dyke, Fairclough, Ferbrache, Gollop, Haskins, Helyar, Inder, Kazantseva-Miller, Le Tocq, Leadbeater, Mahoney, McKenna, Meerveld, Moakes, Murray, Prow and Vermeulen, and Alderney Representatives Roberts and Snowdon.
Abstained (2): Deputies Brouard and Le Tissier.
