One deputy carries Education can for GCSE exam results

IT WAS described as a basic failure of public services and seen as significant enough that an independent expert review is now under way.

Yet only one Education member fell victim in the face of falling GCSE results at the high schools.

The rest have been left divided and significantly weakened.

A narrow vote last week on their resignations was not the ringing vote of confidence the minister might have hoped for.

Deputy Carol Steere was largely saved by a pre-arranged block vote from the Policy Council, who played governance as the get-out-of-jail-free card.

Chief Minister Lyndon Trott and his colleagues on the top bench insisted that the evidence of the review was needed before making any decisions on the board's future.

But strangely, that voting block held together only so far.

Deputy Mike Collins, who was reluctant enough to resign in the first place, saw his accepted, with a few members of the Policy Council suddenly deciding governance was not an issue in this case.

It points to the fact that Deputy Collins did not just carry the can for the GCSE saga, there were other motives at play for his seat going.

How he must have wished he had been as stubborn as Deputy David De Lisle, who did not offer his resignation and so sat safe and silent during the debate – only to put the knife into his minister and another surviving member, Deputy Tony Spruce, by voting in favour of their resignations.

And what of Deputy Matt Fallaize, who failed to make the message clear that he wanted his resignation accepted?

He actually ended up with the strongest vote against his resignation, presumably because he was the only member in making his opening speech who accepted that there was a failing, before resigning the next day anyway.

The lack of contrition elsewhere was so noticeable that one member asked whether they accepted that mistakes were made and events were handled poorly.

Deputy Steere made a detailed opening speech about the events and actions taken, but faced numerous questions about the state of Education that her closing speech, which came much more from the heart, did not address – some took this as a sign that she was not on top of her brief.

And there were some key problems reported by States members:

• Serious concerns about the number of Year 7 pupils with a reading age of less than 11.

• The size of St Sampson’s High.

• Hints at concerns about the style of education’s senior management, although nothing explicit.

• An apparent gagging order on head teachers, which the board was not aware of.

Even though Deputy Steere's opening speech was detailed it still left gaps in the story, as did earlier utterances by other board members, which the review will have to delve into.

Deputy Sean McManus pointed everyone in the right direction when he said that the ability of the GCSE cohort that has just gone through La Mare De Carteret would have been well documented through the 11-plus and other reports after that.

But Education's board members have only spoken about the action taken in March 2010 and March this year – no evidence has yet appeared that they have had a handle on this or were even aware of it since they were elected onto the department in 2008.

Even on the eve of the debate one member, as others had in the weeks before, said that the national GCSE benchmark of five GCSEs and A* to C including English and maths was new, suggesting it was introduced last year. Well, it was 2007.

It just builds the sense of a board that is not being briefed as well as it should be by its staff, or one that simply did not ask the right questions.

More evidence of a breakdown in communication came when Deputy Fallaize said the board were not told about the initial Guernsey Press questions trying to elicit the GCSE breakdown.

An axe still hangs over the department, although it will be blunted by the looming election. Deputy Trott said he would ask for the Education minister's resignation if the review revealed culpability.

There was even some talk on Thursday that he would have nominated Deputy Allister Langlois for the minister's job if Deputy Steere's resignation had been accepted.

Deputy Steere said she would go if the review came out against her.

But that review is likely to be before the States at its mid-December meeting, or, if it misses that deadline, it will be the end of January.

The general election then is only a couple of months away.

So it looks likely that it will be the public that will have its say on the handling of this issue and hopefully it will be more clear cut and less muddled than the States.