The previous committee submitted the amendment to the Education Law just hours before the end of its term on 30 June, despite a majority of its members losing their seats at the general election held 12 days earlier.
If enacted, the amendment to the law would provide every States school with a governance board to carry out any functions delegated by the Assembly or the Education, Sport & Culture Committee.
It would also scrap school management committees, which include parochial representatives and have responsibilities for property and behaviour, and are the only partially independent bodies currently involved in the operation of States schools.
‘The committee has recognised education governance as a work stream which it wants to treat as a high priority,’ said new ESC president Paul Montague.
‘It has, therefore, already started to look into the detail, with an initial session to unpack all of the information held last week.
‘However, having just started that process, the committee feels it needs some time before it can comment in full and discuss the matter further, but it expects to be in a position to respond more fully by the end of this week.’
The members of ESC – only one of whom was on the previous committee – spent several hours last week being briefed about school governance and have set aside a similar period one day this week.
They declined to say how many applications were received following adverts published in April for chairs to lead school governance boards. They also declined to put a timeline on when the successful candidates would be appointed.
The members of ESC are also currently considering how to approach their involvement on a new temporary investigation committee agreed by the States in February and given a £100,000 budget to consider the future powers of school governance boards and make recommendations by September next year.
The control and oversight of States schools has been a controversial issue since an external review carried out in 2011 claimed that schools and their children were being let down by outdated centralisation and bureaucracy.
School governance became a major issue again in the last political term. Votes held in 2023 and 2024 indicated majority support for devolving extensive powers to school governors and leaders, but earlier this year deputies backed ESC’s move for gradual and less far-reaching reforms.
Supporters of devolving powers to schools fear that the current proposals would create school boards without any real powers or influence.
But the previous ESC claimed that devolving powers to schools too quickly could ‘de-stabilise the education system’.
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