Falkland Islands Education Ordinance Review

Written by Nicholas Roberts for the 06th of November 2020 Edition of Penguin News, headlined “Education Ordinance ‘will last 20 years’ after impending review”

IT was confirmed at an Education Board meeting on the October 15 that there will be a review of the Education ordinance and regulations in a joint project with the Attorney Generals Office. The result, after three stages of review and associated amendments, will be an entirely new legislative framework.

In an interview with Penguin News, Director of Education Mrs Marie Horton explained that her hope is “the ordinance will last 20 years.”

The three stages of the ordinance review will be accountability & regulation, schools and teaching and vulnerable children and all non-school topics. Mrs Horton explained: “The ordinance and regulations are outdated, so they don’t reflect all aspects of the Assembly’s priorities, so it’s time to bring them up to date. It’s a large and complex task and we are a directorate with a lot of staff who are operational in terms of being in schools and involved in the college … but in the back room we’re very small and so we need to plan how we’re going to undertake that work.”

Included in the first stage of the review is reference to reviewing the roles of the Education Board, Director of Education, and parents and Government, in education. Mrs Horton said: “The school managers had a number of well based frustrations in terms of the impact they were able to make under the current terms of reference,” so there has been work done through meetings with school managers to identify required changes to the terms of reference.

At this stage “the school managers terms of reference are almost ready to be moved into a school governance structure … This will mirror the current model of the schools with an executive head and two school principals, so we will have one school government and a board of governors,” the Director of Education said. She said it “is critical that it meets the needs of the children in the school and enables the Board to secure, challenge and support,” the system.

Speaking about what will be noticeable from the outside in terms of this change, Mrs Horton said there will be tangible changes in the new system and it will allow the School Governance Committee to, “support the shaping of the school vision, ethos and strategic direction [by advising on] priorities for improvement, and then monitor and evaluate school performance.”

Mrs Horton went on to say “the School Governance Committee [will be] advisory. That’s really important, we’ve worked really carefully with the school managers. [The committee] are not a decision- making body, the accountability lies with the Executive Head and key senior leaders. The Governors will provide advice, guidance, information and constructive challenge … Accountability sits with paid members, as [the committee members] are volunteers.”

In addition to the work being done to implement the new system for a Governance Board, the Director of Education said there was also work being done with the Falkland College board. “We will be working with the Falkland College board members in the future to develop new, fresh, terms of reference which may have a critical role in supporting lots of different individuals in our society in terms of both award bearing learning and community learning, they’re a critical part of our infrastructure.”

Also included in the terms of the Education Ordinance review was regulation of independent schools and elective home education. When asked about this Mrs Horton said, “legally Falkland Islanders have the right to set up an independent school, but it’s really important that any independent school is regulated by the government so that there are rules, laws and regulations about what needs to be in place before an independent school is opened.

“There also need to be regulations about how the effectiveness and the safeguarding in any independent school is guaranteed. The Assembly is committed to enabling the right to set up an independent school, but the law and regulation needs to be there to protect children.” Speaking about the process for setting up an independent school the Director of Education said, “an individual can’t just set up an independent school … There will be a process that will be determined, and the school will have to be authorised … You can’t just open a school in a building, it will be a highly regulated space and it’s an enormous piece of work for

someone to undertake.”

Speaking about elective home education, Mrs Horton said, “the government has the duty to provide education, and parents have the legal right to withdraw their child from the state funded education. But a child has a right to an education. So, if a child is withdrawn then a parent has to, by law, provide an education. What the ordinance will be, and what we’re doing in terms of policies, will be [to make] the policies very clear about what are the criteria that determine whether parents wish to home educate is efficient.

“The law says that a parent has to offer an efficient education, and the new ordinance will be supported by elective home education policy which sets out the criteria of determining what an efficient education is. It’s all about protecting a child’s longterm interests and their safeguarding. The home education will be monitored. So, the child will be visited three times a year by a senior member of the school staff. The Director will have the right to withdraw the permission to selectively home educate if the director has evidence that the education is not efficient.” Asked to clarify that the phrasing on the law is ‘efficient’ rather than ‘sufficient’, for home education, Mrs Horton said that the law does say that the education must be ‘efficient.’

In the second stage of the Education Ordinance review: Schools and Teaching, the initial scoping includes, “update provisions on

religious education.” Mrs Horton said, “consultation for the education ordinance showed a groundswell of support for religious education, but that it is about world religions. Giving children and young people the skills to understand the values and beliefs of world religions, to enable them to navigate the world more effectively and to understand and value other peoples views.”

On implementation it was said by Mrs Horton, “it will be in evidence both in IJS, Camp Education and in FICS. It’s a critical element, I think, for a young person who’s going to be living in an increasingly dynamic and global community.”

The plan set out in the Education Board Meeting on October 15, describes that each stage will include a review of both the policy and legislation of each practical area. Policy would be reviewed first and then its associated legislation work would get underway while policy review would begin for the next stage.

Nicholas Roberts