When is 61% not really 61%? Education survey's 'go-to statistic' has been misinterpreted from the start

The group of 2,414 respondents, making up the 61 per cent in favour of selection, equates to less than five per cent of the eligible questionnaire respondents. Secondly, and just as critically, every respondent to the questionnaire was self-selected so the group was not a representative sample of the Bailiwick population. For example, over 50 per cent were people with connections to either the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre or the grant-aided colleges (including sixth form and primary for the grant-aided colleges). Also 20 per cent of all responses were from current students in full time education and nearly 70 per cent of these were students from the Grammar School and Sixth Form Centre. So the respondent group was over-represented in several crucial respects, which can easily happen with data produced by a consultation exercise. It simply was not set up to ensure a representative sample of islanders' views. Consequently, extrapolating from the 61 per cent sample of respondents to explain any trend in the Bailiwick populace is mathematically invalid or, to use plain English, completely meaningless.

The following analogy may help to visualise the basic error being made here. The header margin, above the horizontal line at the top of the Guernsey Press letters page, represents less than five per cent of the area of that single tabloid page. And the area taken up by the published letters including the Open Lines title and guidelines makes up around 61 per cent of the page. Now imagine someone announcing that the header margin alone actually represented 61 per cent of the whole of the page. And furthermore, they (repeatedly) asserted that, by reading the text in the header margin, they could deduce the content of the printed letters. Both these preposterous claims would be immediately rejected by readers.

During the same debate Deputy Trott responded with his latest take on the 61 per cent consultation finding – his attempt to explain why his amendment was laid on behalf of the 'people of the Bailiwick of Guernsey' even though the sample was 'so small'. He argued that the number of pro-selection respondents 'bothered enough' to engage in the consultation process was boosted by a 'significant percentage, probably greater than half' of the like-minded non-responders. By speculating that some people might rate all non-responders as being in favour of selection, he gave his guesstimate a false authenticity by making it appear to be a conservative figure. Deputy Lyndon Trott offered no evidence to back up his assertion. None the less, by the end of the fifth day of education debate Deputy Trott had revisited the consultation finding at least five times.

Misleading statements arising from these misconceptions about the 61 per cent figure have appeared in numerous submissions to this Open Lines page since the beginning of February. They have also persisted in the education topic streams of the Guernsey Press online forums. One of the regular pro-selection campaigners, writing anonymously as 'Election Issues', has repeatedly defended segregation at 11 in posts by misapplying the consultation report's 61 per cent finding.

So where did such a pervasive misconception originate? The paper trail leads back to three letters from members of the public in the Guernsey Press on 5 February. These were preceded by three related articles in the paper two days earlier, entitled respectively, '11-plus abolition comes under fire from all sides', 'Education has ignored results of public consultation' and an Opinion column, 'Pick and mix consultation loses its way'. The latter piece offered a critique of Education's handling of the consultation results. One of the published letters was entitled 'Education has lost sight of "fundamental objective".' It criticised the former Education board for allegedly compromising fundamental democratic principles by not following the 'will of the people' as the consultation showed 'a clear majority in favour of retaining the 11-plus'.

The second letter, 'UK model is not a good system to emulate', continued the theme of deputies not carrying out the 'will of the people' and questioned whether not knowing '60 per cent is a majority' was proof that 'they were not educated in the right place'. The last letter, '"Truculent" proposals will delay La Mare rebuild', complained that the Education board members 'insult our intelligence by daring to say that the 61 per cent majority of those of us who responded, and supported the retention of some form of selection, are in their view unrepresentative.' These letters became the forerunners of a spate of pro-selection correspondence and exchanges which continue to the present time.

The earliest local radio broadcast featuring the promotion of 61 per cent as a supposed indicator of support for the retention of selection was transmitted on BBC Guernsey's Sunday phone-in on 7 February with guests Deputy Sherbourne and then prospective deputy Ferbrache. The percentage was presented in argument by the latter on three separate occasions during the programme.

Presently the education debate remains unresolved at a political level despite the unambiguous resolution of the Assembly in March 2016 to introduce non-selective admission to States secondary schools with effect from September 2019.

Misinformation whether by error, replication, delusion or design has no place in the Assembly. It contaminates quality debate irrespective of the position a deputy takes on the future structure of education in the Bailiwick. The States of Deliberation was so named for very good reasons – it should not be relegated to a vacillating States of Obfuscation. And salaried deputies, with time and resources unavailable to most members of the general public, who continue to use the 61% erroneously should be on notice. They may risk a challenge from fellow deputies about deliberately misleading the Assembly.

JON LANGLOIS,

Le Couogn,

Grandes Mielles Lane,

Vale, GY6 8BG.