Time for all island students to have equal opportunity

That is, similar to the one which is thriving in places such as Finland, which, if you take any notice, is among some of the best countries in the world in terms of the education index.

Education is considered a major component of well-being, and is used in measuring economic development and quality of life, which is a key factor in determining whether or not a country is an undeveloped, developed or developing nation.

This only proves that Education on the island is the most important sector to focus on in improving our current state.

A comprehensive secondary educational system is the only way in which the opportunities in learning will become equal. The current Federation Course introduction has proven that moving between schools can be great, as it offers a wider range of options on the curriculum. When we work together, four sites as one, we will have a much richer curriculum in terms of options available, which will help diversify the qualifications of the future generations, locally increasing the selection of industries that are available and present in our economy. At the moment there are students at the Grammar School that are not provided the option to take up a Btec course at age 15 or 16 (at the College of FE).

It is well known locally that the College of Further Education offers a fantastic variety of options, both for students that are certain of which career path they wish to choose and for those that wish to develop their physical understanding into industries such as the building sector. However, if the Grammar students (who are supposedly more intelligent) are refused the option of taking on these courses then there may be a diminishing of the number of students willing to fulfil a career in the more theoretical and numerical areas of architectural studies and surveying; which may in fact damage the island... and the proposals for the east coast development will become another fossilised plan.

A small, but present, percentage of the Grammar School GCSE students are failing to meet Education's suggested minimum of a grade C in both maths and English. For whatever reason this may be, and I'm sure no fault of the quality of teaching, it is still happening.

On the other end of the spectrum nearly 50% of high school students are passing, in more recent years. This suggests that a number of students at the Grammar School shouldn't in fact be there. They are being provided with the glory of a Grammar School mention on their curriculum vitae, unfairly.

The massive increase in tutoring is disrupting who it is that's making it into their school. It is that which I reckon is decreasing their grades and not providing them with what should be a 100% pass rate at GCSE.

The only obvious option to prevent any further emotional upset through the gaining of incorrect placements which are well deserved by others is to scrap it. A comprehensive secondary education system would be socially more acceptable, offering everyone the chance to continue on to secondary education with the same friends they had spent the previous seven to nine years with.

As well as offering the same wider range of opportunities, a comprehensive all-island school will still tier students in accordance with ability and hopefully general effort – something which is not currently present anywhere. You can imagine that whole-island tiering will provide opportunity to move between sets when change in yours or others' ability is assessed and proven.

Obviously this will depend on their struggles, improvements, need for support or need for challenge. This will help those at the bottom of the Grammar gain the grades they deserve and are capable of but not yet achieving as they share a class with people of a far higher ability. It will also help those at the top of the high schools be pushed that little bit further in an environment where they will share a class with students of the same ability.

So for those who think that removing the Grammar School system will mean no streaming in accordance to ability, you're wrong. The streaming will be better in these circumstances as people will be able to move from one set/class to another, and the class you're in will not be determined by the exam you sat in Year 6, but by continuous examinations that will also help prepare you for GCSE.

The 11-plus was organised to help find the 20% of the population that could be managers and the 80% that will be workers. In today's society your role in a business cannot be determined by your ability at age 11 as everyone now has at least another five years of education following that.

Jersey and England both have more updated education systems.

With major reformations in the 1970s the new process of secondary education actually took into consideration the inaccurate statistics gathered in pre-1945 education, statistics that in fact determined the creation of the system we still currently have today in Guernsey. The States of Guernsey need to decide on a rational decision soon, so that no more secondary educations will be ruined by outdated printing facilities, cramped classrooms, slow computers and grade-affecting PE, drama and music spaces and facilities.

La Mare needs the same facilities as other schools in order to have the same opportunities. Every year it's left waiting at the bottom of a States agenda. Bring it to the top, because it's 90-plus students' secondary education that's affected every year.

The Treasury and Resources proposal for a three-site school seems irrational.

'With three schools you save £2m.' Well how much do you lose? After all, the scale of the success of an economy is often weighed by educational ability. It may save money now but it loses an enormous amount of money in years to come. With a wider difference in student to teacher ratio in the three schools proposal, teachers will be teaching many more lessons than they currently are and will have a lot less time to plan and prepare lessons. Because of that the quality of lessons will go down, and the quality of learning will also go down. In the end the grades will go down with it.

I believe this is the most important debate in Education's history, it might even be the make or break of our economy for the everlasting future. I strongly believe that unless equality in education is provided with its present teaching quality, we might as well say goodbye to Kevin Stewart's plans.

We might just be left with a decreasing population and students looking for jobs elsewhere; we might be in a similar situation to that of Alderney, in fact.

CAMERON ASHPLANT,

(age 16),

Head boy of La Mare de Carteret

High School.