Timing is everything in school debate
EDUCATION'S staged approach to releasing information about the transformation of the secondary school system will buy it time to draw up detailed plans. However, until the full picture is put together at the end of the year, parents, pupils and teachers cannot be sure what the future looks like. The first bit of the jigsaw to come into view will be the proposals for how to transform the education estate to set up all-ability teaching in a three-school model.
This should be the point that the island finally learns which secondary school is likely to close.
That report is due to be either this month or, at the latest, July.
However, a full policy letter – presumably taking into account public feedback – will not be released until three or four months later in October, ready for the final debate in November.
Intriguingly, that States meeting comes after what many people would consider a linked but secondary issue: the future funding of the grant-aided colleges.
The college funding debate is due to be held in September, two months before deputies get to vote on the overall proposals.
Again, information is in short supply but the timing of the two debates suggests that Education considers the funding of the colleges to be a standalone issue.
In other words, it will change regardless of how deputies vote on which schools to close and what to do with the College of Further Education.
It is far from certain that the Assembly will agree with that timetable. For some, what happens to the colleges and the security of their funding is an integral part of the larger debate.
Deputies may be reluctant to vote for part of the transformation without knowing more.
Education must be careful that such issues do not become a stumbling block to the substantive proposals. The closeness of the November vote and the passion shown in that debate shows that this will be a tricky set of proposals to get through unscathed. And already there has been rumblings about the vice president's 'compelling' case for spending £120m. on rebuilding Education's estate.
Until that case is made in full and the benefits outlined, such sums will alarm without informing.
