ESC has won its first challenge of this term, with efforts to delay the introduction of school Governance Boards defeated.
Education, Sport, and Culture asked the States to back its plans yesterday with the Governance Boards a central feature of its amended Education Law.
New deputies Haley Camp and Rob Curgenven had tried to reopen debate on the Governance Boards with a sursis motivé aimed at preventing the “premature approval” of boards “without powers, accountability or certainty of future empowerment”.
Deputy Camp said they wanted to ensure appropriate political distance between the ESC committee and schools, saying this is something that has been highlighted as a need locally for many years already.
“We have heard about the Mulkerrin report in December 2011. It landed with a bang. Its intention clearly set out to put children first. The most important person in any school, it said, is the pupil.
We must all remember that nobody is more important than the pupils.
“In short, the Mulkerrin report took aim at an education system that was outdated and which placed far too much control in the centre. The degree to which education is controlled at the centre, it said, is a major weakness, and nothing has changed since Mulkerrin recommended instituting a form of local management of schools whereby certain responsibilities would be devolved.”
Despite finding some support among the assembly, Deputy Camp’s delaying tactic was defeated.
ESC President, Deputy Paul Montague had successfully encouraged the States to back his committee’s plans, which were inherited from the previous committee.
He explained that ESC intends to continue devolving responsibility to the schools, but that it can’t happen all in one go as some have suggested.
“We are seeking approval for the high level legal framework today, flowing from which will be more detail in an ordinance and even more detail in ensuing regulations,” he explained.
“There’s so much for that social value governance. But of course, in some jurisdictions, education settings also hold greater autonomy in areas such as HR, finance, premises, procurement, IT systems, health and safety, and risk management. Where this is the case, Governance Boards provide essential oversight to ensure these functions operate efficiently and effectively, but we’re calling that function based governance.
“From our starting point, the social value based governance can happen far sooner in legislation through functions, but that social value based governance can happen sooner. The later function based governance will happen later, and we don’t know how far it will go.”
Deputy Montague said the issue with delaying the introduction of Governance Boards was that the current system is not fit for purpose.
“At present, there is no modern governance structure overseeing our 20 education settings,” he explained.
“This leaves us out of step with almost every progressive education system, and it’s to the detriment of our learners.
“So education governance matters because it brings together the skills and experience of the local community to drive high standards and enrich the learning experience for every student. Yet our current arrangements fall short. Several schools do have committees, but the current law does not allow every setting to have one, even where they exist. Their reach is extremely limited through no fault of their own. Their governance and safeguarding functions are weak or in some cases non existent, and I reiterate that is through no fault of their own. Worse still, school committees require political membership from the members of ESC. That’s hardly the arms length government that we need. We firmly believe it’s not appropriate for politicians to operate at that level. Our role is to provide system wide oversight, not to sit inside individual schools.”
Deputy Montague said school committees have been aware for quite some time that they will be replaced by Governance Boards and that the new boards are ready to start work under the new legislation early next year.
“They are also fully aware that steps are being taken towards much greater levels of devolution and delegation in the longer term. They come to the role with their eyes wide open about how their functions will evolve over time,” he said.
A 27-7 majority voted against the sursis, giving their support for the current plans with Governance Boards taking some of the power from ESC bit by bit over the coming years.