By Advocate Carl Parslow
JERSEY’S government has perfected a new art form: the ability to talk about the future while quietly ignoring the very institutions that might help shape it. Nowhere is this more evident than in its treatment of further and higher education, a sector so neglected one might assume it had personally offended the entire Council of Ministers.
At the centre of this slow-motion farce is Highlands, the Island’s main provider of further and higher education. It is a place of ambition, grit, and, unfortunately, crumbling plaster. Its principal, Jo Terry-Marchant, recently issued a letter to the States of Jersey that could be mistaken for a building inspection report from Chernobyl. Highlands, she warned, was “outdated, inflexible, and no longer fit for purpose”. One suspects she was being polite.
The government’s response? A few coins for maintenance and a vague promise to “consider options”. In Jersey, this is political code for “we’ll get back to you once the roof collapses and blame you for it”.
To the uncynical eye, it might appear that the government is engaged. After all, it has produced a flurry of strategy documents: the 2019 Post-16 Strategy White Paper, the 2022 Further Education and Skills Actionable Agenda, to name but two. Each is a triumph of formatting over function, filled with bullet points, buzzwords and the unmistakable aroma of consultants.
But strategy, in Jersey, is less a roadmap and more a decorative wall hanging. The actionable agenda, for instance, laments the lack of co-ordination, the complexity of funding. It even admits that Highlands needs to be “reprovisioned”, a term so sterile it could be used in a hospital ward. Yet, years later, Highlands remains as it was: underfunded, overused and architecturally nostalgic.
The Jersey Chamber of Commerce, not typically known for revolutionary fervour, appears to have grown increasingly exasperated. In a recent review, it highlighted the Island’s recruitment and retention issues and the urgent need for investment in both further and higher education. Jersey employers, it turns out, would actually quite like to employ local talent (before they all leave).
The Chamber of Commerce’s warnings, like those of Highlands itself, have been met with the government’s signature move: a nod, a note, and the planting of more long grass. The private sector, meanwhile, is left to wonder how an island that prides itself on economic foresight can be so wilfully short-sighted when it comes to the very people who should one day be running it (if they are still here).
Of course, ministers point to “fiscal constraints”, “competing priorities” and other well-worn euphemisms for “we’d rather not”. There’s always money for a government headquarters, consultants and the occasional vanity project. But when it comes to higher and further education, particularly the kind that some consider involve blazers and Latin, the purse strings tighten faster than a tax loophole.
The government appears to have allocated a modest sum for maintenance at Highlands in one of its latest plans. This is akin to giving a leaky lifeboat a fresh coat of paint. What the Highlands site needs is a full-scale redevelopment. What it gets is a polite pat on the head and a promise to “review the situation”.
The real losers in this bureaucratic ballet are, of course, Jersey’s students. Many are forced to leave the Island to pursue further or higher education elsewhere, and a significant number of these budding talented future leaders will never return. Those who stay must navigate a system that is under-resourced, overstretched and increasingly out of sync with the modern world.
Particularly hard hit are students with complex needs, who rely on inclusion programmes and life-skills training here in Jersey. The current facilities are not fully compliant with disability access standards, which is a genteel way of saying they’re discriminatory by design. In a society that claims to value equality, this is less an oversight and more a quiet disgrace.
The irony is almost poetic. Government ministers speak often of the “future economy”, of the need to embrace AI, green energy and digital transformation. But without a functioning pipeline of skilled Jersey workers, trained through robust further and higher education in our island, these ambitions are little more than policy theatre.
The result is a slow but steady brain drain. Young people leave, talent dissipates, and the Island becomes increasingly reliant on expensive imported labour. This is not just an education issue, it is a demographic and economic own goal.
What, then, is to be done? The answer is not revolutionary. Jersey needs to do what every functioning society has done since the Enlightenment: invest in its own people. That means funding a full redevelopment of Highlands and treating education not as a cost centre, but as the foundation of everything else. It needs a Skills Fund that is actually large enough to transform the Island’s educational landscape. It is at present a political gesture, a fiscal fig leaf for a much larger problem.
It also means listening to those who actually work in further and higher education and, in particular, the person who runs Highlands, rather than those who write about it in glossy reports. The time for strategy documents and polite consultations is over. What Jersey needs now is concrete, steel and the political equivalent of a backbone.
Jersey is not a poor island. It has the means to build a world-class education system, one that students can be proud of and one that works for the good of our economy. What it lacks is the political will and the imagination. Until that changes, the Island will continue to drift, strategically, incrementally and slowly but surely into a future for which it is increasingly unprepared.
In the meantime, Highlands will continue to do what it has always done: educate, inspire and improvise. One can only hope that, one day, the government will stop treating further and higher education in Jersey like an afterthought and start treating it like the national priority that it should be.
Until then, the Island’s education motto will remain: “Let them learn elsewhere.”
Born and educated in the Island, Carl Parslow is an experienced Jersey advocate and notary public with over 25 years’ experience. He heads up Parslows LLP business legal services department, advising corporates and individuals on a range of issues with a particular emphasis on acting for Jersey owner-managed businesses. Outside of work, he enjoys rugby and cycling with Lasardines.
