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The requête aiming to delay Education's plans for 'two-schools' is not going to "magically produce a model supported by a majority of teachers and a majority of the public", ESC's President has said.
In a statement following school staff's overwhelming support for this delaying motion, Deputy Matt Fallaize said all this requete would achieve is kicking the can down the road for another five years.
While also trying to cut through the discourse and clarify some facts, he said Education, Sport & Culture was looking to start meeting with teachers and unions more frequently as soon as possible, and welcomed a series of discussions that could take place as often as possible.
Pictured: Public opinion has turned against ESC recently, but the Committee are trying to demonstrate the benefits of their model through new social media pages.
But Deputy Fallaize also asked what people were expecting from the requête a number of deputies are expected to bring to the States soon, which will enforce a delay on the implementation of the one school two colleges system.
"It was never going to be easy to implement educational reforms on this scale. The challenges of reform will remain even if some deputies preparing a requete pretend that kicking the can down the road will magically produce an education model supported by a majority of teachers and a majority of the public," he said.
"They are peddling a myth and nearly five years of endless debate and procrastination about the future education model risks becoming five more years or even longer."
Pictured: Deputy Matt Fallaize.
Teachers and other school staff were also assured things could and would change if they engaged with education on the plans: "As the unions have acknowledged, talks have been going on involving the Committee, officials and representatives of teachers and support staff in schools. These have led to some changes being made to the detailed plans for the 11-18 colleges. We would like to continue talking to union colleagues to explore whether we can make further changes and reassure their members about the intent and pace of the changes we are leading."
Deputy Fallaize said he could not bring about any change that people wanted though, because the States have already twice set his committee's financial boundaries.
"Within those boundaries we will use whatever flexibility we can find to support and reassure teachers through the period of transition to the new model of education and beyond. I have advised union colleagues that we would like to meet them as soon as possible and that we would welcome a series of discussions as often as they can hold them. I hope our next meeting will be very soon.
"As well as talking through ways in which we could respond positively to their concerns, I would like to talk to them about the draft requete which has not yet been submitted. Teachers have been invited to state their firm views on the requete even before having the chance to read it. The propositions in the requete on which the States will vote do not do what many teachers have been told they would do. This is not the fault of teachers, but it is something we are eager to talk through with them."
Pictured top: Matt Fallaize said the requête would just be kicking the education can down the road even further.
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