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Policy Centre publishes response to Scrutiny report on secondary education
The Policy Centre has published it comments on the Scrutiny Panel report on secondary education. The Panel’s report quoted extensively from the Policy Centre’s submission on the structure of secondary education and measurement of attainment.
Key points from the Centre’s comments on the report are –
- The report is an excellent analysis of the state of secondary education in Jersey. Not only is the analysis high quality but the report also includes a wealth of data that is not otherwise available.
- The Centre particularly welcomes three findings -
- The Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning is responsible for providing a ‘first class education system’ but the definition of this, or relevant measurable objectives, are not clear.
- There is a disconnect between the current system of academic selection in secondary education and the Government’s ambition to provide an inclusive education.
- The 14 plus transfer to Hautlieu School is a divisive system which is unique to Jersey. There is no evidence to show if it is the optimum way to structure the secondary education system and it is contrary to other aspects of Education policy relating to Inclusion.
- The lack of engagement in consultation exercises and reviews is partly because those whose views would be most relevant are often not well equipped to be able to participate and partly because the experience of organisations in making submissions to government consultation exercises and Scrutiny Panels has not always been a happy one.
- The opinion survey reproduced in the report should be discounted as an indication of the views of the Jersey people generally and key stakeholders in particular because of the way it was conducted.
- The report notes the absence of data on the CYPES website. More generally, there is virtually no publicly available information about the policies on education or meaningful data. From a public policy point of view this is unacceptable as it makes informed discussion on education issues very difficult.
