Much changed, but not a need for answers

For Education, Sport & Culture’s written response to questions posed by former member Peter Roffey is a masterclass in obfuscation.

The answers are there but the student will have to work hard to get to them.

Asked, for example, whether respected former chief minister Peter Harwood has been kept on as an independent overseer of the secondary review Education’s answer is ‘sort of’, or, in more generous language, ‘he has not played such an active role since the election’.

One thing the committee is keen to get across with clarity is that ‘much has changed’ since the pause and review requete a year ago.

The election, it seems, has altered everything. Certainly, it has brought in a committee with four members new to the States.

Intriguingly, however, those members are considering the role of the independent overseer. While the previous committee thought the position essential to reassure islanders of objectivity ‘things have changed since then’.

Hopefully, once Education has completed its ruminations it will agree that the best way forward remains one with Advocate Harwood a fully-involved and informed participant. For while much has changed, the need for objectivity remains.

Much of the response is along the lines of ‘give us time to get our feet under the desks’. The committee has not even considered the education law yet as it focuses on catching up on the secondary school review and The Guernsey Institute.

Education is a complicated business, mired in historical squabbles and U-turns. We cannot afford to get it wrong again and waste more years.

But an expectation has been created by the repeated use by deputies of their ‘action now’ mantra. This is an Assembly of ‘doing’, we are told, not deliberating. Multi-tasking is surely part of that skillset.

Education cannot rely forever on the patience of pupils, parents and staff. Answers will need to be more forthcoming than this.