CONFIRMATION that five directors of the GTA University Centre have resigned is a depressingly logical step in what has been the systematic dismantling of one of Guernsey’s treasured institutions.

Add to that the news that the centre’s enormously capable chief executive is retiring – well before his 65th birthday – and it is clear that the situation is indeed grave.

How grave is difficult to say. From the usual Commerce and Employment weasel words in this matter, islanders could be forgiven for thinking (or being encouraged to think) that these developments are actually improvements.

The other difficulty is that to express in clear terms what actually has happened is to risk further damaging a centre of educational and training excellence that C&E and the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, as other funding partner, seem determined to destroy.

They have also refused to come clean on exactly what they are doing to the centre and why five directors of the current governing board have retired.

The reason is that C&E and the commission are seeking to cover up their actions – ‘reviewing the structure of governance’ – so islanders and centre users don’t realise the extent of the changes until it is too late.

The aim, apart from starving the centre of funds, in part to disguise the cash and pension problems experienced by the GFSC, is to end the centre’s independence.

In short, the department and the commission are determined to take over the centre and make it a States department.

Anyone with any experience of the GTA, and there are thousands of islanders who have benefited from its courses, will know that it is precisely because it is independent that it has succeeded so well.

While there is some merit in having an island skills strategy, as C&E opines, there is none in having it run, Politbureau-style, by civil servants who exited the real world years previously.

The former board of the GTA reflected industry and was in touch with the island’s training requirements far better than any States department.

This planned takeover of the centre, without any agreement by States members, will prove to be hugely damaging.