Save our teachers
Friday 27th February 2009, 2:30PM GMT.
Grammar students (left to right) Zack Hannis, 16, and 17-year-olds Luke Gill and Jared Le Normand are among those unhappy that teachers are forced to leave when housing licences expire – and that some politicians will not listen to their complaints. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0727130)
GRAMMAR students are trying to stop teachers being forced to leave when their housing licences expire.
A group protest has been set up on social networking site Facebook after a meeting between politicians and sixth-formers turned sour.
The group, Save Guernsey Teachers, Change Housing Law, has been launched by students unhappy with the alleged behaviour of two of four States members at the Sixth Form Centre’s annual deputies’ forum, which encourages teenagers to become more politically aware.
Many were disillusioned with the responses from Chief Minister Lyndon Trott and Housing minister Dave Jones about why first-class teachers could not have five-year licences renewed when they end this summer.
Now around 200 so far are supporting the website protest to get the island’s housing laws changed.
The Year 12 pupils accused both ministers of making them feel inferior and ducking questions at Monday’s event and they were particularly aggrieved at the behaviour of the chief minister.
However, Grammar School head teacher Jeff Smith said deputies had answered the students’ questions.
They were not discourteous, he said, although he admitted they had carried on talking, ‘as politicians do’.
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Good luck to them. Getting those two to listen to anyone other than the coterie of right wing cronies they surround themselves with (or who are led by, more like) would be a real achievement.
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Not the first time the CMs behaviour and inattentiveness at meetings has been noted. Is it a tactic he uses to wobble his colleagues? If so, it’s a bit harsh to roll this one out on teenagers.
Hmmmmmmmmm!
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Whether their allegations of poor treatment are justified or not is a matter of opinion I’m sure – as I wasn’t there it’s impossible to comment. In fact probably the most unbiased opinion is probably that of Jeff Smith. Nevertheless there are real positives in this story:
First, this sounds like a good lesson in politics for our young people.
Second, it demonstrates that our young people are showing an interest in island affairs and the future of their island – especially when one considers that if the law was changed, most of them will have left school by that time so wouldn’t be directly affected. This is a commendable and responsible attitude.
Finally, it shows that rather than sulking, our young people are prepared to take positive grass roots political action to fight their cause. Stories like this show the better side of island youth.
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P Le P are you Trottys PR.
Our CM should have told them to behave, or he would have given them the same treatment as that upstart Brehaut.
The other course of action would have been to send in Bernard, with his joke book or O’Hara, to bore the pants off them.
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Thanks for the comment Paul,
I would like to add we set up this group as a result of the law that allows this to happen, and not as a result of anything that happened at the meeting, – which did its job in making younger people such as myself more aware of politics in Guernsey.
The group is near 500 now, which says a lot.
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If people don’t get the answers they want to here then people tend to say that they are not being listened to i think that the deputies who gave up their time to take part in this Q&A should be congratulated and the students who said they were not being listened too should learn to accept the answers given as one opinion or fact and not as an attempt to belittle their own opinion, as for fast robert we know he is not a member of the trott jones fan clubs and is closed to the fact that the two deputies actually do quite a good job maybe he could come up with the solutions on housing licences instead of whingeing about deputies,The teachers after all know full well when they take up teaching positions they are tied to a licence of a set period and if local teachers were recruited instead then these situations would not arrise so often.
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I am a Guernsey teacher living in the UK. In 3 years i have been qualified i have seen one job advertised i could apply for. It was withdrawn for application before the end date advertised. There are very good local teachers just waiting for jobs to come up, unless they are advertised no one gets a chance. Secondly…the people who rave on that newly qualified teachers have no expeience to bring….crap. I was a newly qualified, when i got Head of Department. NQTs are hungry for success and still in the 24/7 work ethos of the training programme. I run the best department at the school in over 30 years. I have 100% pass rate. Sorry but maybe it is time for those in place to move on.
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Housing licences appear to be contantly in the headlines one way or another. The students are allowed to express opinions on the treatment they recieved. Expression is not whinging.
The attitudes of CM and DJ are not the topic of the debate, despite the way the article was written.
When one chooses to live on Guernsey under a licence scheme, they have full knowledge that it is not likely their licence will be renewed. This is true. However would everyone really want to stay? I don’t think so.
Dismantling the licence system would not lead to a sudden influx in off-island workers. Current employment regs still protect locals as they will still get first pick at the jobs tree. However when there is no locally qualified person off-island professionals are sought. This helps Guernsey in the end.
On a positive spin, if more of them stayed, then perhaps they may water down the short sighted opinions. But they will alway exist. The short sightedness of the Guern and their politicians is responsible for the hand-brake applied to this island. You could have free energy, safer road systems, better education, more appropriate healthcare and a thriving tourist industry if you did not constantly suffer from the Guernsey whinge. I yhink it is disease specific to this region as Jersey suffers from it as well.
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No wonder that these students feel they are not being listened to when many comments are focused on the students “getting a lesson in politics”, “showing an interest in island affairs”, and “prepared to fight their cause”. These comments are so condescending. How about a response to the actual problem at hand? They ask for a simple acknowledgment of the problem and then comments on how to improve housing licenses in order to maintain or improve services in education? they dont want your opinion on their age.
Of course they were ignored. Yes they showed up for face value – well done! its the least they could do – the very least. Housing in their ignorance didnt even acknowledge that the problem exists, let alone even try to come up with any ideas to solve the problem.
I would like to see the reasoning behind refusing to extend the licenses given the fact that the teachers still wont be eligible for permanent residency after a license extension and due to the shortage of secondary school teachers on the island they would have to be replaced by another license holder anyway.
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NJ, if there aren’t enough local teachers (there aren’t, remembering issue is lack of A-level teacher) and those who come over from the UK are rejected license renewals, where do you suggest we find our teachers?
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Like i have already said there are local teachers maybe wanting to work back in Guernsey but after checking Tes.co.uk there is never any jobs…..so what do you people want who live there. English that need licenses to stay (which will always be on going because theres always another set of 2 year A level students needing teaching) or once thay have stayed there welcome (license period)you actually advetise……
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Wil – far from being condescending as you think, those comments were both displaying a respect for our young people’s opinions and an encouragement to keep going, despite a perceived cold shoulder.
Interestingly enough, if you take the time to read Dave’s comment (who is evidently one of the students) you will see that is exactly as they were perceived.
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It can take years for some teachers to establish themselves and get to know their pupils ; five years for a teacher is like being a foot-loose locum.
Anyway if one teacher leaves he has to be replaced by another so where is the threat to population size?
If the authorities are so afraid that a 15 year licence will allow offspring to qualify as local, so what, many local youth leave, never to return.
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mmm
A telling story you tell. Isn’t it odd we encourage our children to get educated in the UK yet the system favours the already embedded licence holders.
Time and time again these stories emerge. Of course States HR would deny that this. But there is a compelling evidence to suggest that local teachers, health care professionals and, to a degree, finance types, are precluded from getting positions. Reason being? It’s easier to extend a licence than than withdraw the contract and employ a local.
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mmm
There has been a job advertised for a maths teacher at Grammar for months on end without any local applicants. The fact is that many jobs have remained vacant, being advertised for months before license holders are interviewed, they cant remain open indefinitely.
I am not doubting you but maybe the job that you saw which closed early was just a one-off (maybe they had already advertised many times prior?). Primary school teacher positions are a lot easier to fill, there is a greator supply due to the more general skill set and greater popularity of the course of study. But this is completely different to secondary teacher positions which is very specialised and there is a severe under-supply -even in the UK (hence all the advertising which we have seen on tv recently to get more people to study in this area).
I would suggest that if any local is really serious about returning then they should just send their resume to the individual secondary schools (they know where they are) and wait for a position to come up. I dont think this is a great stretch of ones time and energy (or imagination). If they are serious then this is very very easy thing to do. Have the people you know done this very easy task? I hope so as it would make it a lot easier for our secondary schools to recruit.
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Time now to let these teachers leave. We have many ,good, well qualified teachers waiting to get back home,teachers we as islanders have paid to train, (I know of one who has come back and has only been able to get supply teaching positions) mostly returning without partners or children in tow! nobody extra to put further drain on our resources.These Grammer pupils should realise that if they leave for university training, if the licence system is watered down it is very unlikely that they will ever be able to return whether they like it or not.
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It must be galling for a trained local resident to work as a supply teacher to a non-local licence holder.
A bit like loca lnurses earning £15 and hour while UK nurses earn £25 and hour.
Not only do I want the Education Ministry I’ll take Housing and HSSD.
;)
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Jackie,
I’m not sure that I buy your conspiracy theory that it is easier to extend a licence than it is to withdraw a contract and employ a local. I’ve been on the other end of this… on licence as an essential worker in a very specific role, over 20 years experience in the industry, proven track record etc and no qualified local talent was available. The result was that I was granted extensions, up to a point, but still got declined once my next extension would have taken me over 10 years and therefore I lost my job. Was I replaced by a local?…no…another essential licence was issued and another “temporary” talent was imported to fill the gap when no local candidate came forward. It all seems a little bit pointless constantly churning imported staff when it might be better to keep them in place until (or if ever)a local can step forward to replace them. I’m sure that the States could easily rewrite the essential employment rules to ensure you only kept your licence as long as you kept your job and on release or retitrement (regardless of how long you had been here) you either went Open market of relocated.
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Jackie i take your point in general – where the qualifications and experience are equivalent then the local should (and usually does) get the position. However your point with the nurses pay is solely due to being a an “agency” nurse or not – it has nothing to do with being a local or non-local and happens throughout the UK. I know of many nurses in the UK where they have been working in the same hospital for years, then will quit and be reemployed through an agency to the same job but with a much higher pay. Doesnt seem right does it? but they can do it because the hospitals are that desperate for staff. If our hospitals werent subject to continuous high turnover then maybe they wouldnt be so desperate as to go through the agency route as much. Its a little off topic but not really as if we could solve the problem for education then maybe the same principles could be applied to the health services.
I like Carts idea of licenses being tied to employment on the condition that if you stayed long enough to retire then you would have to go open market. This could work for some but i believe the following idea is better-
For the granting of permanent residency to license holders, a simple change of the wording from -number of years resident to number of years working – should be sufficient. This would cover License holders as well as their children -so essentially, children born here may not be eligible to be permanent until they are about 38+ years in age. I might be in lala land but this just seems like such a very tiny simple change which would be a big step towards solving this immense waste of taxpayers money license mess.
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Hi Carts
You have a specific role and I accept there will be a limited pool to get staff, so people like you are probably the exception. There is much anecdotal evidence of embedded licence holders being favoured over locally qualified staff. I know anecdotes are unhelpful but as there is little information emanating out of govenrmnet of numbers of returning students, their qualifications, matched against licence extentions all we have is anecdote.
Wil, we are told that local nurses leave their jobs becasue of the low pay. Well that appears to be a bit nuts really if agency staff are getting £25 and hour an the locals a lot less. By keeping the nursing rates low and paying non locals a heck of a lot, surley this is a self fulfilling prophecy?
I a non unionised commercial world this insanity would be stopped in an instant. Unfortunatley it maeans making decisions that don’t fit in to the procedural box ticking exercise of union and employer relations. Until the unions sit down and are less militant, a new innovative policy of migratiing locally qualified nurses back into work on a transitionary pay scale, or similair idea, then nothing will ever change.
I also agree that licences should be tied to the job. You change job, you lose your license. For once I agree with David Jones on that one.
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Let them stay but lets start training our own people.
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As a student of Grammar losing two of my teachers mid a-level and as a non-local i am frequently disgusted by the way my attitudes are treated, “you take our jobs”
“you don’t pay your way”
now this just simply isn’t true, at Grammar there have been a number of posts advertised locally that have just not been filled because there is no-one locally qualified, now people can say they know people who are and can’t get jobs but they need to really listen rather then dismiss plain fact,
Before September the school is going to need 2 A-level qualified maths teachers, an a-level qualified Philosphey teacher and serveral other posts, now sure we can sit around and wait for locals to be trained but between now and then i would like an education my parents pay their taxes for and i dont care who it comes from as long as they are qualified.
Oh and i was there when the Chief Minister’s and Mr Jones’s behaviour was allegedly bad and let me point out that from someone who has viewed a European Parliament in full session from the ground level that their conduct was despicable, and i believe the students of the Grammar School did not deserve to be treated like that
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