At the Institute of Directors Debate last week, Rory Steel, who also teaches at Beaulieu, said that the curriculum and the UK’s university system was ‘broken’ and advocated wholesale reform of the Island’s education sector.
Expanding on his comments, Mr Steel said that students sat too many exams in an outdated format and that that was putting undue pressure on teachers and pupils, who were increasingly suffering mental-health problems.
‘It’s really about the number of subjects they have to do, which is 12 GCSEs nowadays. That was driven by the reforms brought in by Michael Gove in the UK, which were wrong,’ he said.
‘What this has done is take away the flexibility that teachers have to work on other areas with students, such as soft skills. They should take, I would say, six GCSEs – that would be the magic number.
‘These would be English, maths, science, tech and two other subjects of the students’ choice.’
He added: ‘We have also moved backwards by doing final exams rather than modular ones. That again is creating too much pressure.
‘Also, the exams are not preparing students for life in the working world. In what situation in the workplace would you go away for an hour and a half and write something without any access to information?
‘This sort of education does not provide the logical thinking or creativity that we want to see developed in students.’
Mr Steel also dismissed the idea of Jersey setting up a university, claiming that the traditional higher-education format in the UK was no longer working as it should.
‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to have a university in Jersey because the UK model is failing,’ he said.
‘The universities in the UK got too greedy. There was one case where a university made it really easy for students to get a first and that attracted a lot of students there. But it undermined the credibility of that degree course.
‘We should have a campus here, but not in the traditional model. What we can do is bring young people over here to work in industries like finance and digital to get experience.
‘That way we would get young people and the skills we need into the Island. Also Jersey is very expensive and has limited night life, so a university here would not be that attractive to students.’
