Requête laid to delay Education reforms

Wednesday 29 January 2020

Deputies who want to halt Education's school plans so that alternative models can be investigated have formally submitted a delaying motion.

Deputies Andrea Dudley-Owen, Carl Meerveld and Rob Prow have been leading the charge for a one-year pause to Education's plans, which they want to get in place before the committee starts building works at the two 11-18 colleges.

If approved by the States, it means that a final decision over the future of secondary and post-16 education will not be made until after the next election, where education will be one of the main issues on voters' minds. 

Thousands of islanders have signed a petition in the last week that calls for Education's plans to be put on ice, while secondary school teachers have voiced serious concerns over the one-school model agreed by the States in both 2018 and 2019. 

The requête, which is signed by Deputies Dudley-Owen, Meerveld, Prow as well as Mary Lowe, John Gollop, Lester Queripel and Jeremy Smithies, calls for Education to report back with detailed information about other viable ways of reorganising secondary and post-16 non-selective education before the end of the States term. 

It instructs Education to "prepare a report before the end of the term of the current States, that must include a comprehensive comparison of the structure and implementation of the 1 school on 2 sites plan with other viable models of non-selective educational delivery in Guernsey previously presented to and considered by the Committee, for consideration by the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture as constituted after the 2020 General Election and to direct the newly constituted Committee to revert to the States before the end of 2020 with a Policy Letter and suitable Propositions to implement what it believes to be the best model for secondary education in Guernsey."

Pictured: Deputies Dudley-Owen, Prow and Meerveld have long been opponents of the one-school model. 

The requerants have cited public uproar to the plans as one of their reasons for laying the requete.

"The submission of building plans subsequent to the policy approval on 6 September and the publishing of relevant details such as Traffic Impact Assessments, along with an invitation to tender have drawn a considerable amount of attention from stakeholders, including Douzaines, members of the public, teachers and support staff, teaching Unions and parents, who have expressed serious concerns," the requerants wrote. 

"The government process for capital bids, the results of teaching Union surveys, community queries, and formal questions in the States of Deliberations have highlighted serious inadequacies of detail around the plans for inter alia, managing traffic, transition modelling for teachers and students, space allocation, sports facilities, overcrowding, parking, impact of larger schools in the community, transport and disaster recovery."

"Numerous incremental changes to the plans made in isolation to reactively address the different concerns of numerous stakeholders risk the majority-approved plan from September 2019 becoming a very different one in implementation from what was originally proposed, with the added probability of significant cost overruns. 

"What is required is proper consideration of the delivery of education in a n informed and evidenced manner with comprehensive details of the structure and implementation of viable non-selective models presented for comparison and consideration."