ADVANCE JERSEY
ADVANCE Jersey will look closely at the way in which the budget is distributed. In particular we are concerned that too much of it is directed toward non-teaching posts and activities and not enough is reaching the classroom.
Our policy of equality of opportunity means no child should be denied the chance to realise his or her maximum potential and we will continue to support the cost of education from nursery school to university for the children of lower-income families.
A third of students leaving university in the UK say the experience was a waste of time and money. We believe too much emphasis is placed on directing young people towards university whether they are likely to benefit or not.
Not every child is academically minded and we are failing to meet the needs of many school leavers by not devoting enough resources to vocational education. Our community imports skills that could and should be provided to local youngsters through more emphasis on vocational education from primary level throughout the school system.
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BIG PLOUGH
BIG Plough will support the continuing success of Highlands College and encourage its development into a University of the Channel Islands, with financial support from industry.
New vocational and degree-level courses in specialised subjects like Anglo-Norman studies, marine biology, organic farming, hospitality, conservation, CI law, media, arts, mental health, social enterprise and interational philanthropy can play to Jersey’s unique historical and geographical strengths. The university’s aims will include both strengthening Jersey’s links with France and attracting a floating student population to the Island, with its associated social, cultural and economic benefits. Students leaving the Island will be encouraged to consider universities beyond, as well those in, the UK. We support the Education Department’s U-turn on paying tuition fees and will explore practical ways to link that investment to new and exciting career opportunities back in Jersey.
Although a full sixth-form college remains impractical as long as the States subsidise Jersey’s successful private schools, even greater collaboration between all sixth-forms and Highlands will be sought. With the aim of aiding this interchange and reducing both congestion and pollution, a new study will be commissioned into the possibility of an integrated education transport system linking all campuses and using electric buses.
All secondary students will be required to study a new civics module covering Jersey history and constitution, political engagement, public services and personal finances.
In primary education, Big Plough will strongly support the new Children’s Commissioner’s programme to ensure that no child is hungry or neglected, either in or out of term time. The revival of parish halls as vibrant, multi-purpose community hubs will have an ever bigger part to play in this process, and major investment in extra teaching staff to reduce average class sizes and provide intensive lessons in English where required.
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JERSEY TOGETHER
NOTHING is more important for Jersey’s future than the quality of education and training we offer. We need to develop the skills, expertise and knowledge of our people, and ensure everyone can develop to their fullest potential. Education isn’t just good for the individual: it is also the key to our economic success.
Spending more on education and training is a key part of the New Deal that Jersey Together is offering. It will create a virtuous cycle of better education, higher skills, a more skilled and flexible workforce, higher productivity, greater wealth and more tax income.
The problems
Jersey spends too little on education: less than half the UK’s spending as a proportion of economic output. We cannot expect to become the best of the best while this continues. Nor can we expect to reverse the economic inequalities that hold people back.
Jersey’s education system reflects our divided society. Results in general are good, but there are significant pockets of poor achievement that we need to tackle.
At present, the fee-paying schools (the colleges) receive more money per pupil (from a combination of private fees and States grant) than the non-fee-paying schools. This relative underfunding of the schools in which most of our students are educated is wrong.
In the future, new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are likely to lead to job losses. There is a danger that many people will find themselves without the necessary skills to compete in the labour market.
As far as university fees are concerned, we will see what happens to the latest proposal from the Council of Ministers before commenting further.
Our policies
*Our central promise is to steadily raise the proportion of public spending committed to education and training, paid for by the tax increases we have already identified.
*We will raise the amount spent per pupil in non-fee-paying schools to the same level as that in the fee-paying schools. We want our non-fee-paying schools to offer education at least as good as that in the fee-paying schools.
*Our aim is to make Jersey a universally admired centre of excellence in school education. We will not accept excuses for poor performance. The dramatic improvement in London’s recent educational performance – improvement concentrated in the most deprived boroughs – shows what sustained, determined intervention can achieve. We will ensure that great leaders are in place in every school, and give them and their teachers the freedom they need to excel.
*Education does not end with school. If we are to make the most of new opportunities, we need a culture of continual adaptation and improvement. The solution is lifelong learning, and a commitment from government and business to support retraining.
Every job lost should be seen as an opportunity to move someone higher up the skills ladder. Employers and the Education department need to work closely to ensure that training matches the skills business requires.
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ASPIRATION JERSEY
OUR educational system is like a colossal curate’s egg: good in parts, far from good elsewhere.
To be fair, the educational authorities face significant challenges both home-grown and imported. Our ethnically diverse population means that skills gaps start developing among very young children. Many low-income families have low expectations against which even determined schools struggle. From the UK as well as locally comes a relentless requirement to achieve measurable results
that are not always relevant to an individual child.
Ours is a knowledge economy. The Island’s future depends on our young people developing the skills necessary to staff up complex, high-pay businesses and other organisations. This means educational excellence for the many, not just the few – nothing less will do.
Pupils who fall behind at an early age seldom catch up, unless remedial action is taken swiftly. We have dedicated individual teachers and head teachers who try their level best to help and support the least able, while not holding back high performers.
But only a systematic programme across all schools will turn things around.
Even after making every allowance, the overall performance of our schools is barely adequate – and with huge divergences between best and worst, those at the lowest level clearly aren’t fit for purpose. This just isn’t good enough.
We want to see every child achieve his or her potential, to provide the fulfilling adulthood that each of us deserves within the limit of our abilities, and to endow our future workforce with the skills it will need in our dynamic, innovative economy. Nothing matters more. This means our schools must raise their game. We will put more money into frontline teaching while seeking savings in the educational superstructure. And we promise to simplify the performance measurement process. As the saying goes, when you’re fattening a pig for market the process can’t be speeded up just by weighing it every day.
We will instigate a skills forum on which schools and employers will be represented. It will be charged with identifying those skills likely to be most needed in the short, medium and long terms, and evolving learning strategies to help deliver them.
For teachers themselves, we want a new deal. Less bureaucracy, less management and administration, less obsessing over grades, less emphasis on quantity over quality.
But in return, clear meaningful goals, and less tolerance for those who can’t or won’t perform. In the classrooms of the future, there’ll be no room for mediocrity – let alone incompetence.
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FOR A BETTER LIFE
EDUCATION is a key factor in providing everyone with the best start in life. The right kind of education can act as a great leveller, giving disadvantaged kids a real opportunity to develop their full talents.
Jersey schools take most of their structure and learning content from the UK. Primary schools do a decent job of teaching the basics but we need to do much better with secondary schools. These are key years where children naturally grow in independence and ambition and are too often stifled by the straitjacket of a set curriculum.
Schools are open for about seven hours a day and about 38 weeks a year. Parents are at work for about nine hours a day and for 46 weeks a year. Schools should be open over a normal working day and terms spread more evenly across the year.
With key literacy and numeracy skills established by the age of 11, children should be offered a wide range of learning options for the first few years of secondary school. Alongside traditional academic subjects, schools should offer creative and practical courses. By the age of 14, the typical student should have mastered a musical instrument, know how to lay bricks or make marmalade and be comfortable speaking another language. Teachers should not be held to a fixed curriculum but have the freedom to pass on their own passions.
Children develop in stops and starts and should not be stuck in year groups but allowed to develop their interests at their own speed. They should be able to choose a set of topics and complete a self-contained course in each one. Wherever possible, children could attend courses at other schools where specialist subjects are available. Much more use should be made of online courses to extend the range of learning opportunities.
This period of development should support children to develop generic skills that can be applied to their future work career. They need to develop the skills of team-working, self-confidence, resilience, decision-making and research.
Having had a chance to develop their interests across many different areas, after three years students should settle down to a more structured timetable at a combined fifth- and sixth-form college, leading to the qualifications that will best suit their skills. Technical and academic subjects should have equal stature and some students should be allowed to move earlier towards apprenticeships, perhaps combining some paid work with ongoing studies from the age of 14 onwards .
Every child is important and every child deserves a chance to find their own passion. Widening our academic system to allow all children to flourish will help to create the innovative and resourceful workforce that will maintain Jersey’s prosperity for the next 50 years.
Education does not stop at 18 and life-long learning should be recognised as essential to upgrading the skill sets of everyone who lives and works in the Island. To ignore adult learning opportunities will inevitably lead to increasing pressures on immigration.
