Trust alone will not effect transformation

The States Assembly has made that abundantly clear with a strong vote, 24-15, giving the committee a free hand on secondary transformation.

The temptation to clear all obstacles out of its path is easy to understand.

ESC members, four of whom are new to the Assembly, have a difficult task and no one wishes to tie their hands.

They have asked to ‘own the process’ and to be allowed to break free of the shackles of the past, even if many of those irons were forged by its current president.

With that achieved, there can be no excuses. Whatever is written on the blank sheet of paper of the promised policy letter this May will be in their own script.

But it will not be their sole responsibility. For this Assembly has chosen its course quite deliberately and decided to ignore warnings that history may be about to repeat itself.

For if there is one lesson that can be learned from the two-school disaster and its many predecessors it is the folly of getting too far down the road without proper buy-in from the public and the teaching profession.

Engaging reverse in the education juggernaut is painful, costly and slow.

We now know that the policy letter has been started and, in a few short weeks, should be completed. We know also that the committee will be proposing a four-school model, including a separate sixth-form at the Ozouets site.

What the island does not know is how that plan will be received, particularly by teachers, or how much it will cost. We cannot know that because there is no detail, just a bold statement nailing ESC to one option, come what may.

Hopefully, it is the Goldilocks solution. Just right for the professionals, right for the island’s coffers, and right for parents and pupils.

If not, and the green ribbons and marchers return, expect many of those 24 trusting deputies to find ways to distance themselves from their responsibility, just as the last Assembly did from the two-school model.