Teacher warns two school model will "ruin education"

Thursday 11 January 2018

Jason Dodd, who teaches at La Mare de Carteret High School, says he has experienced one of his "most frustrating days as a Guernseyman and educationalist", while discussing the alternative proposals for secondary education in the island.

The teacher posted publicly on Facebook, saying he had the "displeasure of meeting with deputies who used irrelevant evidence and untruths to support their proposals" earlier this week.

In his public post, which has been shared more than 500 times, across various personal pages and public forums on Facebook, Mr Dodd wrote that he had spent time with Deputy Matt Fallaize, who is one of the so-called 'gang of four' deputies who have researched and suggested the two-school model as a direct alternative to the official proposals for three secondary schools:

"I mentioned to Deputy Fallaize yesterday about the logistics of relocating hundreds of students every day to a two school model. I mentioned that it would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds a year and Deputy Fallaize replied that in the grand scheme of things a hundred thousand pounds wasn't that much. Fact. To the working class people of Guernsey this is not only deeply insensitive but unbelievably misguided. Deputy Fallaize then proceeded to show off about the fact that Guernsey has some of the lowest private school fees in Britain. Again unbelievably misguided. The only reason private school fees are so low in Guernsey is because they are also funded by the state. There is no other country in the world where working class people and in some cases working poor have to pay taxes to subsidise the education of a demographic that is largely more privileged than our own. Fact".

Continuing, Mr Dodd wrote of his concerns with the expert from a UK school which the 'gang of four' is bringing over to speak at a public meeting on Monday 15 January: "The States of Guernsey are also bringing over a head teacher from the United Kingdom to advertise their proposals for a two school model. This head teacher is coming over from the Cotswolds, a Conservative stronghold of the U.K with a demographic wildly different to our own. People of Guernsey it is a fact that Mr Fallaize and his fellow deputies are making significant payments to this head teacher's school fund in order to support their proposals. Fact".

Mr Dodd's comments also concerned cost and educational outcomes: "This is the most concerned I have ever been about the future of education in Guernsey. Deputy Fallaize and Deputy St. Pier have no regard for the individual in education and are going to sacrifice many a young person's education and indeed their future to promote their own gains".