Threatened schools face another day of agonising
Friday 30th January 2009, 10:00AM GMT.
Luca Ferbrache, 7, is a pupil at threatened St Sampson’s Infants. The States will today decide whether to grant the school – earmarked for closure by Education – a reprieve or not. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0711744)
ANXIOUS parents and pupils of St Sampson’s and St Andrew’s should find out the future of their schools today.
Four-and-a-half hours of debate yesterday failed to resolve the issue.
The States resumed this morning with around 10 members still to speak.
Of the 20 or so who have done so, there has been an almost even split over St Sampson’s Infants and a majority in favour of keeping open St Andrew’s Primary.
But four members of the Policy Council who are understood to want to close both schools have yet to address the Assembly.
Education is recommending St Sampson’s be closed but believes St Andrew’s should remain open.
St Sampson’s Infants School PTA chairwoman Christine Guilbert said she was disappointed that the States had not put an end to parents’ concerns yesterday.
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Matt Fallaize should be ashamed he was voted in to government under the promise in his manifesto of not closing schools
Since becoming a deputy he has had his mind changed he has become carol steers lap dog
He should resign
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I’m concerned that not enough people are concerned about this.
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This whole debate has become a shambles
We can be fairly sure that the outcome will be on almost any reason rather than educational.
We have a Billet that wants to close one school and retain the other. However, the working party that contributed much to the conetn of the Billet wanted to close both schools.
We have States members who want to close St Andrew’s school because of cost or other personal reasons. We have some deputies who want to retain St Andrew’s because they represent the parish or for other reasons.
We seem to have a number of deputies who seem hell bent on wanting to close St Andrew’s for whatever reason. If they claim the reason is educational, God knows where they have got their case from. It certainly isn’t in the Billet.
We have the CM who is reported as saying close both or retain both.
Even within the Education Department there are divisions for whatever reasons.
And then of course the divisions within the Policy Council.
All of these conflicting, and I worry some are personal needs or interests, suggest that whatever the outcome, educational needs will play a supporting role in the decision making process.
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A Conscience
I note you do not have sufficient a conscience to put your real name to your reference to Matt Fallaize as Carol Steere’s lap dog.
At least Matt Fallaize is not afraid to say what he thinks, and tag his real name to his comments.
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Stephen John I agree with your assessment that the debate has become a shambles. I think it was always going to be that way because our elected representatives are all too easily swayed by emotional blackmail rather than by reasoned argument. I’ve just heard a load of emotive twaddle about ‘loss of community’ and the like from David de Lisle and last night Dave Jones came out with his usual preposterous rantings about Guernsey losing everything that makes it so special if these two schools are to close. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some States members end up voting against this very necessary rationalisation of our education services because of the old lady who likes waving to the St Andrew’s schoolchildren from her window. To his very great credit, Matt Fallaize strives to base his decisions on clear rational thinking for the good of the whole community. A pit there aren;t more like him in the House.
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I have a young child who will be due to start infants school in a couple of years. My husband and I bought our house a couple of years ago and one of the selling points for us was the close proximity to St Sampsons infants. I don’t want my child to go to Vale, which by all accounts does not have the room (I am not having her taught in a hut and walking outside in the rain to go to the toilet in winter!!)or the parking available for a safe drop off and pick up. My husband and I have already decided that if Vale becomes the only option, we will move house to another catchment area. I could understand the closure if it was because the facilities were insufficient or education levels were poor but am frustrated that it’s down to saving money so the states can spend it on filling the black hole they’ve dropped us in or the overspend on the recent projects they’ve undertaken.
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Martyn
I agree woth your comments with one minor exception.
I would prefewr savings to come from cutting down the army of administrators that clutter the education system.
I note your use of the word rationalisation. That seems to be the rationale for cutting out St Sampson’s. The Billet makes that clear. It also makes clear that St Sampson’s is not failing school.
Interestingly, the Billet has a considerably higher percentage of children with educational special needs in St Andrew’s than in St Sampson’s.
I would prefer decisions to be taken for sound educational reasons and not the mishmash of utterances contained in the Education report.
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Its so predictable the powerful hate other people getting a half decent education- it means they can be challenged.
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Fair enough Stephen John. I wouldn’t disagree with you that bigger and better savings would indeed come about through cutting down the army of civil servants that clutter the education system (I think that’s true of all States depts).
I also concur that Education did not make its proposals coherent enough to win the vote.
At the end of the day, though, the wrong of bureaucratic overmanning doesn’t make it right to ‘save’ these inefficient and unnecessary schools from closure. Another sad case of cowardly deputies looking over their shoulders and seeing lost votes at the next election rather than making a bold but unpopular decision in the island’s best strategic/financial long term interests.
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Mr Matt Fallaize statement
If elected, I will pursue everything in my manifesto with absolute integrity and commitment. I will never forget my principles and policies so as to fit in more easily with other States members.
I think Mr Fallaize integrity has been shatterd and he should resign for telling lies to the PEOPLE of the Vale Parish
This has bean a very bad week for Guernsey government first the fiasco from Mr BF and now Mr Fallaize promising not to close schools.
How can anyone EVER trust a Politician?
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This Education debate and the Flouquet debate have together highlighted why the current structure of our States of Deliberation has to change.
The system allows a plethora of low-calibre people who “fancy a go at government” and who are barely employable in executive roles in the real world (with a few exceptions, but by no means many) to find themselves in a position to make far-reaching decisions which they are totally unqualified to make. Far too many of them allow themselves to have their judgements swayed by others who are equally under-qualified to make well-balanced decisions.
We have absurd situations like the Education Minister being unable to present an Education proposal because the rest of her Committee, including several teachers with years of educational experience, did not support her views. How on earth can that happen? Surely a Committee reaches a democratic decision and that decision is presented by the Minister whether she agrees with it or not? If not, why bother having a Committee in the first place? An utter and total farce. If I was sitting on such a Committee I couldnt accept that position. Deputy Steere’s position must now be untenable. What will the atmosphere be like at the next Committee meeting?
These types of decisions bring Guernsey into disrepute. The whole system is a shambles. All 47 members have to have their say on every hot issue. Can you imagine that happening in the House of Commons? No wonder we get such poor quality candidates standing for the States? Why would anybody with a professional decision-making background and with good analytical skills be remotely interested in joining such a dysfunctional system made of such low-calibre individuals?
I know its often said that any electorate gets the government that it deserves but under the current system its never going to get any better.
I genuinely fear for the island’s future when we have so many lunatics running the asylum, but until the structure changes the lunatics will prevail.
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First, may I convey genuine congratulations to the school communities of St Sampson’s Infants and St Andrew’s Primary. Both PTAs ran effective campaigns, which clearly helped to persuade many States members to vote the way they did. Despite having taken a different view, I very much respect the democratic decision of the States, and I wish all connected with both school communities the very best wishes in their future endeavours.
In response to a couple of posts above, I should wish to point out that I was not elected by the people of my parish – the Vale – on a promise not to support the closure of St Sampson’s and St Andrew’s. My manifesto contained so such commitment, contrary to the misleading impression that may have been created in remarks made by Deputy Quin in the States this week.
The underlying insinuation that I may have deliberately misled voters into supporting me at the election is really quite unfair. I did not campaign for election on opposing school closures under any circumstances, not least of all because that issue hardly came up at all when I was canvassing Vale voters. My experience was that it was almost a ‘non-issue’ with my parishioners.
The manifesto I delivered to the houses in my parish included the following words:
‘I will not support proposals to close schools where the only consideration is saving money. Based on the very poor arguments put forward so far, I am not persuaded of the need to close St Sampson’s and St Andrew’s.’
At that time, I could not conceive that I would be prepared to support the closure of any primary school. However, I was careful with the language used in my manifesto because I was only too well aware that as an outsider I was probably ignorant of much of the information being considered by an Education board which, in the life of the last States, was 4-1 in favour of closing both schools.
Unlike some other candidates, I deliberately omitted from my manifesto a pledge that I would not vote for closures under any circumstances.
That was the manifesto my Vale electorate received, and that was the manifesto on which I was elected.
As far as I can remember, out of around 3000 houses I visited during the election campaign, I had long conversations about the issue of school closures with two parishioners. I told them both, based on what I knew at the time, that I could not see myself voting to close primary schools. I do not know either of the parishioners particularly personally, but having been aware of the houses where I had those conversations, prior to this week’s States debate I wrote to them both to explain the reasons for having reluctantly changed my mind and to advise that I would vote for closures in the States.
With respect, I disagree with one of the above posts – and I think I have pursued everything in my manifesto with commitment and integrity, and I have certainly not forgotten my principles and policies in order to fit in more easily with other States members. I think most of my colleagues in the States would confirm that, whether they agree with my views or not.
What I cannot dispute is that I did send a private e-mail to the chair of the PTA, a few weeks before last year’s election, advising that I would oppose school closures. It was a genuine reflection of my views at that time, and it was a private message conveyed to the PTA of a school in another parish. In no way was it an attempt deliberately to mislead anyone into voting for me under false pretences. No such commitment or pledge appeared in the manifesto on which the people of the Vale elected me, and had it I simply would not have been able to justify changing my mind. Nonetheless, I understand the PTA being angry with me; and I have apologised to them repeatedly in recent weeks.
After the general election, along with my colleagues on the Education board, I spent five months evaluating masses of information about the case for and against primary schools rationalisation, as the department referred to it. I considered papers several inches thick in total, and remained undecided for a long time. Ultimately, and not long before the board reached the end of its considerations in September, for many reasons I had come to the conclusion that closing the two schools was in the best interests of the island’s education provision, and would be in the best interests of future generations of children across the island. I respect that others may disagree with my view, but I came to it after a lot of very difficult deliberation, and not because of the suggestion in one post above that I am Carol Steere’s lapdog. I am not, by the way.
Having reached that conclusion, I was left with two options – stick stubbornly to my original view despite having come to see it as unjustifiable and not in the best interests of the island’s education provision; or admit that I was wrong originally, apologise for having changed my mind, and speak and vote according to my conscience in the States. I chose to do the latter. The votes I cast in the Assembly on Friday will be a matter of public record for ever, and I will be judged on them, and other votes I cast, should I seek re-election in 2012.
During the States debate, I made a long speech of around 30 minutes – perhaps too long – setting out the reasons that had persuaded me to support closing the schools. Obviously, I cannot repeat all of that here. However, I should like to make two points. First, that education in all its forms remains my number one interest as a politician, and as a member of the Education board I am fighting every day for resources, higher standards and a better deal generally for every child across this island. Second, in 2011 my son is due to start at Vale Infants, where St Sampson’s children would have been transferred in the event of that school closing, and I would never for one moment have even thought about supporting the closures had I believed that my son or any other child anywhere in the island would have suffered educationally or socially as a result of closing those schools.
Incidentally, I am not alone in having changed my mind. I know of several deputies who changed their minds on one or both propositions having listened to debate in the States, which is not unusual. I know of one colleague who entered the States stating that he would rather not overturn any of the policies of the last administration, but ended up supporting my requete to remove student loans because he was persuaded over many weeks that imposing them would have been the wrong decision. Several States members changed their minds over a period of a few weeks about whether to support the motion of no confidence in the Deputy Chief Minister – and had that not happened, the motion would have carried. But surely it is not a sign of particularly sound judgement stubbornly to refuse to alter your views even when presented with overwhelming evidence to support the contrary view?
As I say, though I am happy to concede that I changed my view on primary schools rationalisation after months of careful consideration around the board table, I have not broken commitments made in my manifesto. In my first nine months in the States, I have tried my best to pursue the policies on which I was elected, including some that are quite controversial and not universally popular. And I reject the insinuation that I have conceded my principles since being elected. Nor shall I over the next three-or-so years.
If you have not lost the will to live by this stage of my post, please accept my apologies for its length. And finally, may I repeat my congratulations to the school communities of St Sampson’s and St Andrew’s, and to their parish deputies, who fought a very good campaign on their behalf.
I don’t look in on this forum that often these days, so if anyone wishes to contact me please call on 241333 or e-mail mattfallaize@cwgsy.net
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You make some very good points there David and, yes, I agree that Deputy Steere should have presented the policy letter. For me, though, the crux of the malaise within our government lies with those weak, ineffectual and self-serving politicians who see themselves as ‘parish’ deputies first and Guernsey States members second.
I had hoped that the creation of electoral districts would help to weed out parochial politics from our central decision making body but in the run up to last year’s general election we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the candidates of the South East practically falling over themselves to sign up to the ‘save St Andrew’s’ campaign, even without knowing any of the strategic and financial facts.
Without doubt we are going to see a repeat of all of this, next time with the deputies of the South West, when the airport runway proposals come before the States. Expect to see the weaker and less capable western deputies prostrate themselves on the altar of parochial bandwagonnery and vote en masse against any runway extension or incursion, no matter how much it is needed for the good of the island.
So what’s to be done about it? I’m tempted to say that deputies should be disbarred from voting on controversial matters on their patch but I know that wouldn’t work. I’m tempted to call for island wide voting but I can’t see that being workable for other reasons. What I do know is that we heard an awful lot of tosh and drivel during the schools debate about the ‘loss of community’ but for me the only community that counts is the all inclusive community of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Parish politics is the worst thing about this island’s system of government!
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