Colleges’ parents get letters from both sides of funding debate
BOTH sides of this week’s colleges funding debate have written to parents and wider connections urging them to lobby deputies over the next couple of days.
Parents with children at the colleges and the States schools have received letters, the colleges from their board of governors and high schools from the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture. The colleges focus on personal impact, fairness and the risk of destabilising the private education sector.
The Old Elizabethan Association has also taken a stake in the debate, writing to its members with what it described as ‘a call to arms’.
The committee's letter takes a factual stance and highlights some of the areas where it would rather invest in education than in the colleges.
‘Please be reassured that in this debate, and more generally, we are striving for an excellent education system which is fair and equitable for every learner,’ said ESC president Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen.
The committee’s direct intervention to parents has also been criticised.
Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said that she was ‘shocked’ that the committee had dragged parents into the debate, particularly at the suggestion that the parents of children in the States system were stakeholders because they may benefit from the redirection of funding.
She said it was ‘nothing short of a lobby tactic’ and ‘not fair and equitable’ to States school parents.
‘It is very unfortunate that some of the arguments being aired is that the funding of the colleges is coming at the expenses of parents and pupils in the States schools. We must have a balanced debate that takes into account all of the arguments because there is a lot at stake for the entire secondary education system here.’
