Defunding education model sets students up to fail, union warns
Young people are being set up to fail due to the States refusing to give the education sector the funding it needs, the NASUWT teachers' union has said.
Its comments follow the States decision last week to reject a GST and de-fund Education, Sport & Culture’s well-developed plans to reorder secondary education, leaving the scheme in limbo.
‘The States’ decision last week to reaffirm the current model – yet cut all funding – has created a situation where young people in Guernsey are set up to fail,’ said Wayne Bates, the union’s national negotiating official.
‘The Guernsey Institute will have to continue in dilapidated buildings with water pouring through the roof.
'The Sixth Form will either be located in an hopelessly overcrowded site at Les Varendes, or a near end-of-life site at La Mare de Carteret.
'This will create numerous health and safety risks for pupils and teachers, and will seriously affect Guernsey’s ability to recruit and retain teachers.’
NASUWT general secretary Dr Patrick Roach said the States Assembly had failed a cohort of children, young adults and their teachers and lecturers by refusing to give education the investment it requires.
‘This decision sends the simple message that the States of Deliberation does not value children’s education, which is an utter disgrace,’ he said.
‘The States urgently needs to bring forward new plans on how it intends to fund these reforms and ensure that Guernsey’s education system is fit for the 21st century.’
The statement has followed comments from the NEU union this week that sixth form education needs to stay at Les Varendes, rather than temporarily move to LMDC in 2025.
Education, Sport & Culture president Andrea Dudley-Owen wholeheartedly backed the NASUWT statement.
‘The decision to affirm, but then not fund the future model lets children down, lets teachers down, and lets the island down,’ she said.
She has also been posting on social media about her disappointment in the wake of last week’s debate.
‘Many have been working and learning in sub-standard facilities and I know that investment in our young people through education is essential to our island’s future success,’ she said.
She reiterated her commitment to moving the sixth form to La Mare de Carteret School as an interim measure, while new facilities were created at Les Ozouets.
‘Students will be able to own their space in LMDC,’ she wrote.
'Sixth formers will have more space and an environment to call their own and focus on their studies. The building is in better condition now than it had been, due to significant remedial investment in recent years of c £1.5m.’
