Education: "We're on the starting blocks ready to go"

Thursday 12 October 2023

If next week's States debate goes ESC's way then the Committee says it's ready to crack on with work at the planned post-16 campus at Les Ozouets.

The Committee for Education, Sport and Culture has gone out to tender to find a contractor to demolish the former St Peter Port school as part of its wider Transformation of Education Programme.

Even though the States could de-prioritise funding for the campus development at Les Ozouets, ESC President Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said "we have to get this project over the line.

"We're on the starting blocks ready to go. We need the approval from you."

She was speaking after giving a presentation, followed by a question and answer session to States Members and education staff yesterday, alongside Nick Hynes; the Director of Education.

Pictured: Nick Hynes; Director of Education, and Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen; President of the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture.

He said they explained how far along the work is, and expressed exactly how long some staff have been waiting for the promised improvements to actually materialise.

"As part of the presentation we talked about and showed a timeline of just how long these discussions have been going on around post-16 secondary education.

"Right back to 1986 there were proposals around what the College of Further Education should and could look like and they are actually no further ahead now, apart from the Performing Arts Centre on achieving any of the buildings and the consolidation of the College of Further Education than they were at that point."

Mr Hynes said as well as the pressures on students who are learning in buildings described as past their best decades ago, they also have lecturers saying they're not sure they can continue if the uncertainty carries on much longer.

"...they're hanging on at the moment," he said, "with the prize in in sight, if you like. They could see The Guernsey Institute being built on Les Ozouets which will actually transform how we deliver education across that post-16 campus.

"It's really important to recognize that it's not just about those Btec courses that they'll deliver, but the island is crying out for more and more people to go into construction, more people to go into engineering. Deputy Kazantseva - Miller has put an amendment to say that we need to consider having more preschool hours. But we can't actually serve more preschools if we don't have the young people doing the Early Years program that the college offers at the moment."

Pictured: An architect's impression of the planned development at Les Ozouets.

Mr Hynes says he is an optimist and remains hopeful that next week's debate on the States' Funding and Investment Plan, which will include discussions on things like paying for the development at Les Ozouets, will go ESC's way.

"I have to remain optimistic that the States will be able to reach a decision which will be beneficial to education and moving education forward," he said.

"I think it's really, really important that we're at a stage where we can't do nothing. Our staff across all of our secondary and post-16 institutes are telling us that we need to move ahead.

"Now with this, we need to give them certainty, we need to give them stability moving forward and that is absolutely in the majority in all of those institutions. And we know that because we're talking with them on a weekly basis, we're visiting them and talking to them as part of the transformation programme.

"We've started to be able to give some of them stability by the job matching process, so they know what they're going to be doing in the new structure. They know what money they're going to be paid. We're about to go through that process with another 100 staff before Christmas.

"We would have to pause that whilst we look at what any amendments or any delay might mean for our operating model. Now, we would want to still go ahead because the model is the model that has been resolved by the States' resolution and we know that that model for education that we're leading on through the committee will work.

"Teachers and lecturers have been really clear with us. They just want us to move ahead."

Pictured: If RG Falla hadn't encountered difficulties which led to its liquidation it is feasible that building work may have already started at Les Ozouets.

The building work at Les Ozouets was delayed when the States dropped RG Falla as its contractor late last year. 

The building firm has since closed and ESC will need to find a new contractor if the work is allowed to progress.

"This is the reason we wanted to press ahead with the tender for demolition," explained Mr Hynes, "...we're going ahead with the tender for demolition, not signing anything. We're getting expressions of interest and the reason we're doing that now is so that the program can remain on time and on track should the funding be released for Education to move ahead with the program after the debate.

"If we hadn't released that tender when we did last week that would have put us back with regards to our timeline of actually being able to implement the program moving forward."

READ MORE...

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ESC launches tender for former St Peter Port school demolition 

Education seeks to bust myths on post-16 plans

Education: How we got here, in the President's words

“Saddened” that Education amendments lodged without prior notice