THIS year’s A-level and GCSE results, which once again topped the national league table, are evidence of the excellence of the Island’s educational system. This excellence, moreover, runs very nearly from bottom to top, our primary schools having a well-earned reputation not only for delivering results but also for having established environments in which children can feel comfortable and happy while they learn.
This sounds like an ideal – if not idyllic – situation, but there is an outstanding problem affecting the very first tier of formal education. This is the scandalous area ‘lottery’ which provides some pre-school children with nursery places while denying this vital start in life to many others.
It has long been recognised that this gap is little less than shameful in a community such as ours. We might no longer have ‘money coming out of our ears’, but we remain one of the most prosperous communities in the world.
However, in spite of this awareness, funds for universal nursery education have been repeatedly denied. Other projects have taken precedence in spite of the best efforts of some politicians – including Education Minister Mike Vibert – to press the case.
But, in a move which can be described as the second major U-turn of recent weeks, the Council of Ministers appears to be about to announce that free pre-school education will be made available for all three- and four-year-olds.
This is welcome – if long overdue – news which, it can be argued, will be of far greater long-term significance than the other surprise decision of the moment, the removal of GST from food purchases.
There will be those who see both the GST proposal and funding for nursery care in cynical terms, pointing out that the polls are just around the corner and that the introduction of a few populist policies will do the electoral prospects of certain senior politicians standing for re-election no harm whatsoever.
It will be up to electors to decide whether any forthcoming amendments to the Business Plan are electoral ploys or policies founded on good sense. That said, there can be no dispute about the fundamental status of free nursery care across the board – it is, quite simply, a very good idea indeed.