CONCERNS were expressed yesterday by this newspaper that the impetus for moving from grants to student loans appeared to be more politically rather than financially motivated and Education’s own Billet d’Etat response does little to contradict that view.

It says that fee rates charged by UK universities are expected to increase by inflation rather than significantly and ‘this is a better position… than originally reported’.

That is a revealing remark since it relates to what States members were told was the position rather than what was actually going on.

Because of UK political restraints, Universities UK, the umbrella body representing higher education, is unable to demand the higher fees it seeks and that will be the case for some time.

That should have been known, at least to Education officials, and to imply that Guernsey’s entire funding system should change on that basis was either sloppy report writing or being disingenuous on a grand scale to achieve a predetermined outcome – the ending of grants.

There are other inconsistencies in the department’s forecasts and, if the political board is doing its job, it needs more rigorously to scrutinise the material being fed to it.

It has a further problem, too. Even if the U-turn on loans goes through, funding is an issue that will arise in future and Education will have to reconcile that with the minister’s view that: ‘One of our stated aims is to allow every child to achieve his/her potential. I believe that this statement should apply to adulthood also.’

Few islanders would disagree with that, but it implies not holding back students because they cannot afford university fees.

Yet it was not the view of the Policy Council when loans last came up nor that of the States.

This is, however, a fundamental point of policy for Guernsey. Are the community’s children to be given the best possible start in life or not? Or is this island to take the narrow – and wrong – view expressed by some deputies that unless students return, it is not worth educating them?

This month’s outcome on grants versus loans is just the start of a much wider debate.