Parents put human face to debate
IT WAS only a few words, but they encapsulated everything wrong with the debate over school closures.
On live radio, the deputy minister for Treasury and Resources put forward one possible scenario where pupils from Les Beaucamps High might be 'decanted' into a bigger version of La Mare secondary.
It was an unfortunate choice of words, guaranteed to raise the hackles of every pupil, parent and teacher, and last night they gathered to put a human face to that decanting process, to remind politicians that this is not all about pounds and pence but people.
It was a slip of the tongue and Treasury members were keen yesterday to point out that they are just as interested in educational outcomes as value for money.
But, more importantly, it showed the danger of such an unstructured debate on a subject as important as education. Casting around possible outcomes with no basis in evidence and before they have been thought through causes unnecessary worry not only for current parents but for those whose children are about to join a school.
It is also not difficult to imagine that head teachers at all of the four schools are already having very difficult conversations with existing staff about their future while at the same time struggling to persuade the best teacher recruits for the coming year that it is worth the risk.
The radio debate further highlighted the problems when a central department such as Treasury seeks to exert influence on a specialist subject such as Education. While one deputy was free to cast around headline-grabbing and tissue thin solutions to a complex issue, the other was all too conscious of the very real and disruptive consequences of each action.
Optimists looking at States reform hope that the proposed combination of funding and ideas into a Policy and Resources Committee will end such departmental arm-wrestling by setting high-level policies such as a strategy for secondary education and then allocating the money.
Pessimists fear that a powerful P&R overflowing with bean counters will be devoid of the social conscience that would recognise that not every penny saved is worth the price.
