AN UNDERSTANDABLE wave of anger has engulfed the Education Department as islanders learned that two of three high schools are failing.

That anger was sparked firstly by the way Education hid the truth behind misleading statistics and duped islanders into believing everything was rosy.

Then, when Education bowed to the inevitable and came clean, the scale of deception was far worse than anybody could have imagined.

The 12% GCSE pass rate for La Mare is not just low, it would put it among the worst schools in England. Even Beaucamps, the best performing of the high schools, only just scrapes over the 35% pass mark and, unless there is a dramatic improvement, it will fail to clear the new bar of 50% in 2015.

For now, the anger among islanders has been directed at the most obvious target: the minister in charge of the Education Department. It is perfectly right to ask the deputy and her political board to reflect on their positions.

However, if there is one person who should stand accountable for a long-term failure in education policy it is not a politician at the end of a four-year term, nor the recently appointed head teacher, but the director of education, who has run this department for over a decade.

While minister Carol Steere and her board must face the electorate in April, Derek Neale, the man many would consider the real power within Education, will carry on until retirement promoting the same failed ideas.

Deputies have a habit of shielding senior civil servants from public criticism, as if they are beyond reproach and cannot be held responsible. Yet, disgracefully, the minister is at the same time happy to point the finger of blame at a handful of teachers.

In doing so, she fundamentally misunderstands the scale of the problem.

These results are not the failings of single teachers; they are the failures of years of bad policy.

And it is those who have been at the heart of that policy for years who should resign or be told to go.