Majority of Education would shut schools to save money
Tuesday 6th October 2009, 11:30AM BST.
THREE out of five deputies on the Education board want to close both St Sampson’s Infants and St Andrew’s Primary schools.
And one board member, who believes they should both stay open, said he would rather cut the number of teachers to make savings.
It follows Tribal Consulting’s report on States expenditure, which identified possible savings of £4.56m. that could be made if the two schools were closed. In January, the States voted not to close either.
However, the replacement of Deputy Allister Langlois with Deputy Tony Spruce on the board at last week’s States meeting has only strengthened the department’s pro-closure stance.
Deputy Langlois voted to close one of the schools, but Deputy Spruce (pictured) went a step further.
‘I voted to close both schools and I have no reason to see that things have changed,’ he said. ‘The proposals at the time made complete sense to me and we do need to cut costs.’
Deputy Matt Fallaize said he thought the issue would come back to the States now the Fundamental Spending Review had flagged it up as an area of possible saving.
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Why can’t Education promote an open and transparent discussion into all its costs? For example how much of its costs are ‘back of house’ administration staff which could be lost with no effect on front line service. Why does education need its own HR, IT and PR (!!) staff. IN addition why does the Schools Music Service not attract the same level of interest despite this being the most obvious place to start cost savings. If these 2 schools are to be closed ( I for one believe that they should) it is vital that the decision is made with all other Education costs broken down and challenged at the same time.
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Very good questions Paul.
You point to a number of pertinent instances where money can be saved rather than close schools.
Far too many lecturers are paid for doing low level administration rather than teaching. I suspect the same is true in schools.
It would also be worth looking at the pay structure at the CFE compared with comparable posts in the UK.
I am unsure whether one or both schools should be closed. The evidence in the billet when the last debate was held was qualitatively lacking any gravitas.
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Good point about the lack of detail in the Billet and there lies the problem. Education particularly seems to be of the attitude that they can get away with giving out the bare minimum of detail, what or who are they trying to protect? I for one am very dissapointed with Carol Steere, I really thought she would be one person to really get stuck in and fight for the people of Guernsey. After an initial flurry she now seems content with her lot and views education as her domain and the staff as subjects. Rarely is she seen without the education PR manager by her side.
Stephen makes a good point about salaries and their relevance to those paid in the UK for the same responsibility,who audits these and other Education costs?
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