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New proposals around updating Guernsey's decade old Education Law won't go before the States until after next year's election.
ESC says it has effectively run out of time to get a rewritten policy letter ready for a vote, after their previous effort was roundly defeated.
Representatives of the committee were before a Scrutiny panel earlier this week as part of a public hearing on the work of Education, Sport, and Culture.
During that, they were asked about work to rewrite the Education Law, which Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said would take longer than they have available left in this term of office.
She blamed that partly on other work which was put upon them by other decisions the States made.
"There was one particular amendment which deleted the entire provision of governance, which was one of the reasons for bringing the new, refreshed Education Law back to the assembly, and so it was withdrawn on a technicality," the ESC President explained.
"What we have decided to do is to phase the proposals for bringing the education law back. A series of other areas have taken resources away from our ability to be able to bring more of the Education Law back in this term - obviously, revisiting the funding and refunding debate for Les Ozouets Campus, the Herm requete, etc. But certainly this term, and imminently, we're going to be releasing the proposals for the governance part of the Education Law, with other phases of the Education Law to be released next term."
Pictured (l-r): The Scrutiny panel for yesterday's ESC hearing comprised Deputy John Dyke, Vice President of Scrutiny Deputy Simon Fairclough, Mark Huntingdon, Scrutiny President Deputy Yvonne Burford, and Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez.
One area of the Education Law that some people have called for changes to for years is the devolution of powers to the schools themselves, releasing them of the control of a central education office.
Deputy Dudley-Owen said this could only happen if there were proof that it is in the beneficial interests of pupils - and that hasn't yet been seen.
"Ultimately, does it benefit the child in the classroom, the student in the classroom? Because that's what everybody really wants to know, whether devolution or delegation is going to be a good thing or a bad thing or a neutral thing for students in the classroom.
"If it seemed to be bad, why would you do it? If it's neutral and there's a massive cost attached to it, again, why would you do it?
"But if it's there's a positive impact and it can be seen as value for money, then yes, let's get on and do it, but we can only determine that if we've got the evidence."
Further, the ESC President said some aspects of education services simply can't be devolved from central government and that isn't within education's control.
"There's a split of education functions needed to run the education system in Guernsey and enabling services and so we will be proposing a way forward to investigate exactly per the narrative within, or the sentiment behind the amendment, and returning with a proposal as to how that's done," she said.
"But it really must be recognised, that there's a number of those services that this particular committee could not dictate how Policy and Resources would then break off, for example, finance, or IT, or facilities management, or HR. Those are a number of the functions that I think States Members are seeking to devolve into the schools themselves, but they're not within the education committees gift to."
Later in the Scrutiny hearing, some hints as to how devolved powers work was given by members of Education, Sport, and Culture, when the Director of Education was asked how headteachers manage poorly performing subject teachers.
"All of our head teachers are autonomous with regards to managing and supporting all of their members of staff in school," explained Nick Hynes. "And so if there are any performance issues in any of our schools, the head teacher would lead that process, along with HR staff."
Pictured top: The ESC panel at yesterday's Scrutiny hearing comprised Sophie Roughsedge, Nick Hynes, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, and Deputy Sam Haskins.
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