Education cannot go on as it is, says report

By Carol Steere

Education minister Martin Ozanne outside the States yesterday. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0542948)

THE Education Department cannot carry on being managed as it is, according to an independent report released today.

The much-anticipated review on the role of the department by Dr Trevor Robinson of IBIS Consultants is like no other seen by the States because it offers no firm recommendations or proposals on a way forward for the department.

At first glance the report appears to raise more questions than it answers and this is likely to disappoint the signatories to a petition, led by Deputy Jean Pritchard in July 2006, whose concerns about management led to the investigation.

They are likely to feel, at first sight, that it sidesteps their concerns.

But Dr Robinson said: ‘Carrying on as now cannot be a sound basis for success.’

Supporters of the department will see his comments as a vindication of the senior management team and the department as a whole.

But the questions that the review poses indicate the areas where there are concerns:

*What is the role of the States in setting policy, priorities, staff appointments, overseeing management and monitoring outcomes?

*What is the role of the Policy Council in these areas?

*In what circumstances can it be justified for deputies to draw attention publicly to named officers?

*What is the precise role of the Education board collectively when the problems in Education, especially in respect of personalities, are widely seen as the responsibility of politicians?

*What are the appropriate relationships of all of the above to key officials and the roles and inter-relationships of officials at all levels and what are the relationships between Education and other departments, notably Treasury and Resources and the human resource function of the Policy Council?

Supporters of the requete hoped that the report would have gone into detail and provided solutions to the issues identified.

However, Dr Robinson does reveal that acute tensions have arisen within the education sector and that the criticism aired about the director and his style and the department more generally cannot go unchallenged.

‘What is not in doubt is that some aspects of the present structure and the present ways of operating are not tenable in the longer term in the current climate of division,’ said Dr Robinson.

That will be the key challenge facing the new Education board, he said.

The report implies that the current political leadership of Education had not been strong enough to handle the issues and problems raised and mentioned in the report.

‘Running the existing Education provision is an immensely demanding task,’ said Mr Robinson.

‘It requires a strong Education Department with a strong leader.’

Despite the concerns expressed within the report, Mr Robinson said that there had been many very positive changes over the last 10 years under the tenure of the director of Education and that islanders had been well served by the department.