Requete may fall but the fight goes on

Supporters of the requete are right to say that the one-school-two-sites plan was rashly approved in January 2018 without knowing all the salient facts.

With no clear information on costs, no idea which two schools would close and no clue how to get so many pupils in and out of large schools without causing chaos it was a huge leap of faith.

Education likewise is right that the island is so far down the road to transformation that it is impossible to simply stop without damaging children’s education and disrupting the lives of teachers and parents.

With hindsight, deputies should know that the time to ‘pause and review’ was two years ago.

They had their chance. A last-minute amendment was placed in that 2018 debate by Deputy Peter Ferbrache and the late Jan Kuttelwascher which sought to keep the 11-plus on life support for a few years until the two-college plan was fully worked up.

The ‘gang of four’ saw that as an unsubtle ruse to hang on to selection and the island instead got on board a bus with no fixed destination.

Hence, we are where we are. In a mess, as deputy after deputy admits.

Even today, the fear of returning to selection lingers behind every rejected proposal. Trust is an alien concept in the Chamber and many are in no mood for compromise.

So, inevitably, the showdown between the requete and the two-college plan approaches. As amendment after amendment hits the canvas, the two heavyweights prowl in their corner awaiting the main bout.

Bets at this stage must be on the status quo and the two-college plan. Its opponents know what they don’t want but cannot coalesce around an alternative. Against Education president Matt Fallaize, a politician in impressive control of his brief, their efforts to topple the current plans look amateurish, ill-informed and doomed to failure.

But even if Education does hold the balance of power among 40 States members this week, the question remains how they will win over the teachers and the public in the months to come.

Until they can do that, victory is hollow.