Digital Skills - Minister for Education, Sport and Culture - Transcript - 9 June 2014

Economic Affairs Scrutiny Panel Digital Skills

MONDAY, 9th JUNE 2014

Panel:

Connétable S.W. Pallett of St. Brelade (Chairman) Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary

Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour

Witnesses:

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture Director, Education, Sport and Culture

Designated Director, Education, Sport and Culture Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture

[15:19]

Connétable S.W. Pallett of St. Brelade (Chairman):

Thank you again; second part of the afternoon. This is the hearing, one of our final hearings, in regards to Digital Skills and your Thinking Differently strategy. Again, I think for the benefit of the tape, I just need to go around and introduce everybody again and then obviously we will make a start. So I will start; I am Constable Steve Pallett, I am Chairman of the Digital Skills Sub-Panel.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Thank you very much. I do not need to repeat the Code of Behaviour but I will. You have got to behave yourselves, no phones on and stuff like that, or on silent. As I said just now, this is one of our wrap-up hearings in terms of the Digital Skills strategy and your Thinking Differently strategy. In terms of the Thinking Differently strategy which was launched in the last quarter of 2013, obviously we have had an opportunity to visit schools and, thanks to the department, have a close look at some of the business plans. Could you tell us where you are in terms of the implementation of the plan within schools at the current time?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Do you want me to take it?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Yes, please.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

In consideration of the target and milestones and timeline that we have at the back of the document there, we think we are on target. There are some elements of it we are ahead of target and some elements there is a bit of slippage and that is really down to a couple of technical hitches. One is that we are going through a tendering process at the moment but other than that pretty much we believe we are on target.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

In terms of the business plans with the schools, in terms of the delivery within the schools, obviously we have had an opportunity to look over the plans themselves. In terms of either secondary schools or primary schools, how are you going to ensure as you implement this plan that there is a consistency through the schools? Obviously they have all got their individual plans, they have all got individual ideas about how they want to take that forward but from a departmental point of view, how will you ensure there is consistency so we do not end up with a digital divide between students in one school and students in another?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

That is a very good question. I think you have seen in receiving the plans, we have got about 16 schools that are right on target which is great. That is the kind of number we want to have at this point in time. We have got about 10 schools who we just need to tweak them in terms of where we need to take them, and they are being spoken to at the moment. Then we have got about 6 schools that we have identified as needing more help and we will immediately put people in on that practice, but I do not know if you want to pick up on this, Mario.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. The important thing is to recognise that this is not a question of taking all the schools forward at the same time because quite simply we would not have the capacity in the department to do that. This will involve new structures within the school, training, hardware, software, so we will manage most of the tendering processes through the department so the funding will go out to schools. They will buy the training back and they will buy the software through us so that we will ensure we get the best deal that we possibly can by buying bulk. When it comes to something like training, so we use the plan ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Just before you go on to training, you mentioned funding and timeline. What is the timeline in terms of funding for hardware, for example? Now you mentioned ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well the first tranche of funding will be made available to schools very, very shortly.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Okay. Is that for the forthcoming school year?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

That is right, yes. Yes, for the September school year. We only have the first tranche of funding; we get the second tranche of funding in ...?

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture: In 2015.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: In 2015.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

So how much have you got for the first tranche?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: 1.5?

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture: Yes, it is about 1.5.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

£1.5 million. So this is the way we will ensure a consistency: so the plans have come in; you have had an opportunity to look at the plans?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

So we take the plans and we pull out of those plans the training aids that each of the schools have identified. Where a number of schools have identified the same sort of training aid, then we will probably work together with those schools and we will put on something centrally for them. Where there are some specifics in a school maybe that is going off in a slightly different direction because of its own context, then we will more or less just facilitate that; the school will probably arrange something for itself. But I think the important thing to recognise is that although there is £3 million sitting in this particular strategy and an additional £3 million within the department which enables us to manage the whole system, schools themselves will probably add additional funding to it from within their own budgets. So, there will be very few schools who will be able to implement the whole of their strategy in the first year, or even the first 2 years, and they will be dependent on us securing again additional resources in the next Medium Term Financial Plan to take that work forward.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Who has been providing advice on the development of their business plans?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have employed a couple of advisers, specific I.T. (Information Technology) advisers in education from England who have come across and worked with those schools, and we can provide you with the C.V.s (Curriculum Vitaes) of those people if you are interested. But they are used to working in the classroom with teachers and with head teachers, helping them develop their plans and implement their plans.

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We are also using our own professional partner team who obviously have got a detailed knowledge of the schools as well.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Can I just ask you, you said very few schools would be able to implement the strategy in the first couple of years. What is going to happen in the cluster schools - this is primary school we are talking about - when they are feeding into the secondary schools if they are not all coming in at the same sort of level? How is that going to be managed?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well it is not a question of them coming in at the same level because that is taken care of. The new curriculum will ensure that children in primary school get their entitlement. That is more specifically about computing. It is how the schools will choose to use the technology to enhance the other facets of learning in the classroom that may well be different. But in the past we have had sharing practice sessions. I would expect that would be something that would continue so teachers in one school will share what they are doing with teachers in another school so that the practice spreads right across the service.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Are all the feeder primary schools having liaison now with their secondary ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well, of course, in the west where you are, you have a cluster-approach to this so rather than the individual schools put their bids in without understanding what the other schools are doing, they have come at it from a cluster perspective. So they are working together on that, so I do not think you are going to see much variation between those schools.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

No, okay. Is that replicated in the others?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

There is another cluster that is worked together on that but it is largely to do with the context of individual schools, where they are now in their I.T. development. Some schools have invested quite a bit over the years and are ahead of the game and where they are in terms of the needs of the school. So, for example, the I.T. strategy that you would implement in Victoria College might be very different from the one you would implement in Mont à l'Abbé.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Have you found in terms of the business plans fundamental differences between clusters where you have had to go away and say to some of the feeder schools: "You need to tinker with or alter your business plans you put together"? You did say almost from the start there was a change of approach from the department allowing them to develop their own plans rather than you force something on them.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, absolutely. I think it might be helpful if you look at this in a slightly different way. When we normally talk about people bringing forward bids, you are expecting the bid to be perfect and you are not going to fund a bid unless it is perfect. But we are in a learning and development industry; that is what we are about. So what we want to do is we want to find out where schools are, what they know about themselves, how they want to plan for the future, whether or not they have the capacity to plan for the future. So we are not expecting every bid to come forward and be perfect. We are expecting those bids to tell us where a school is so that we can provide adequate support to that school to take it on to the next level. That is what this process has been about and it will continue for some time. It is not a start and finish project; this project will go on for ever basically.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

There was a comment made by one of the, it was not one of the head teachers, it was one of the I.T. staff within the school about this being very much a phased process over a period of time. Is that very much how you see it, is that we are in the first phase at the moment, up to maybe 2015 and then we have got to move on forward from that?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We are in the fourth phase because the first phase ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well they did say that as well. This is the other I.T. strategies as well.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

... started in the early 1990s when the States invested £10 million in the education system, so it is an ongoing process. But as far as this particular strategy is concerned, yes, absolutely, we are in the first phase.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

I wonder if I could follow up on the chairman's question where he asked about the business plans, whether the department have to tweak any because perhaps they were going off in all directions.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

No, it is not a question of tweaking the business plans, it is a question of working with the schools and helping them tweak their own business plans. Also, it is about making sure that where we know that things are in place in schools that they are represented in the business plan. So, for example, some of the schools did not highlight e-Safety as strongly as they might have done in their bid because they know they have got it pretty secure and we know they have got it pretty secure.

[15:30]

So in those cases it is just a question of going back and saying: "Look, you need to represent what you are doing here because you are not giving yourself enough credit." There are other plans where there might be more of an emphasis on the hardware aspect of it and maybe we would feel there was not enough emphasis on how technology was going to be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning. So we would go in - not personally but our advisers would go in - and work with those schools to make sure that we know the investment that is going into that school is going to make a difference.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

How have you balanced the supply of hardware, be it iPads or whatever you intend to do, against teacher training because one goes hand in hand? I think to have the right hardware in place to allow teachers to teach is very important but also providing the right backup to teachers and the right teacher training for them to be able to use that in the classroom is very important. We saw some good examples of that when we were at schools.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. There is a stage before that. It is important that obviously if you are bringing in new technology into the school you want to make sure the teachers know how to use it, but it is not just a question of them knowing how to switch it on, how to load this up or how to make it work. It is a question of whether or not they know how to use it to improve the quality of teaching and learning. So how will you employ this device in the classroom to enhance learning for children? Will you use it for this purpose? Will it be made available for this purpose? How will the children use it? How will it be integrated into your lesson plans? That is the big thing for us that we are conscious could get lost in all the discussions about software and hardware. It does not matter how much you invest in software and hardware in the classroom, if it is not being used effectively to improve the quality of teaching and learning then you are not getting value from it.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well the big question there would be: how are you getting on with your teaching training in terms of individual schools and generally? Because, again, I think when we went to the schools, we were quite impressed with some of what we saw in terms of how that is being progressed at the current time. But, again, there was ...

The Connétable of St. Mary : There were differences.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well, it is an inconsistency to some degree but different schools have different approaches.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well the initial training conference you attended?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

It is a question now of drawing out the streams from the individual business plans and putting together the more central training programme that we would hope to help the schools access but at the same time schools themselves will be developing their own programmes.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

So it will be down to schools ... and I am going to use a word I know that your Assistant Minister will like very much, is creativity. In terms of the teachers being able to provide that creativity for students, do you see that very much within the school itself that they have to put their own teacher training programme in?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. Let us say I am a head teacher and I am trying to implement this vision for I.T. within my school. The first thing I will want to know about is how our teachers are currently using I.T. within the classroom now. What are they using it for? What is available to them? The next thing I will want to know is, once we have developed our strategies, how are teachers going to continue to use that and enhance that use within the classroom? So I will want to look at lesson plans, I will want to see how the teachers are planning to use I.T. So, a very simple example might be, a geography lesson, a teacher might be teaching about a country but the shift on this one might be: "Do you know what; I want you to research the best country in the world to live. I want you to use these resources. You can access them through this technology, you can use this technology to record and you can use it to work collaboratively with another person." Those are just some examples; there are countless examples. But I would want to see in the lesson planning within a department that the department was conscious that technology can improve learning outcomes for the young people and that it is being used effectively, not just being used as a typewriter, not just being used as a spreadsheet and not being used simply to play games.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I very much understand what you are saying but, again, because we saw various levels of it being implemented at the current time, and we know it is very early stages, and we know there is a lot of teacher training being done, but in terms of the overall and how you oversee it, how will you ensure that consistency?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I would like you to explain for me if you do not mind what you mean by "consistency". We are not expecting every school to do exactly the same thing.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

No, and I certainly would not expect every school to do the same thing but as pupils are coming out of each primary school going into secondary school there needs to be a reasonably consistent level coming out of primary schools into secondary schools.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well we would expect the children coming through from primary schools to be ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

But how will the department oversee that to ensure that we are not getting ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well we would oversee it in the same way that we would oversee standards in any aspect of education through our Professional Partnering programme.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Okay.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

So when we go into schools, our professional partners go into schools, the last question is about the quality of educational standards and they will look for the evidence, so we would expect to see evidence when we do a report on a school that technology is being used effectively to enhance learning.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

In terms of the teachers themselves, in terms of how they are going to ... and I know you are going to say it is down to each individual school to decide how they are going to do it, but is there going to be an overall view that teachers will teach from iPads, for example, or be provided with iPads, or is that an individual decision for each school?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

No, that would be an individual decision for each school. It may well be an individual decision for each teacher. When we talk about science in a classroom, a particular topic in science, we do not tell each teacher in the end how they should go about teaching that topic. We do know what best practice looks like, we know what the syllabus demands from us, and we expect the teacher to be able to interpret that and deliver an exciting lesson to the pupils. It will be exactly the same with technology. They will not be expected to use iPads but they will be expected to show how they can use technology effectively within the classroom.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Again, I suppose it is down to teacher training and the approach taken by teachers themselves. I presume it will be down to again a school issue, but how will you try to push on those teachers that are maybe a little bit slow to react to new technology? How would you think the school should be approached?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Can I answer that?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think the key bit that came to me when we embarked on this where we have decentralised the whole notion of the way in which you teach I.T. is the sharing of good practice the director has already mentioned and that is the bit ... the other thing is, even as we are talking here, the technology is racing on at a rate of knots. The big thing I think you see, and I think you attended the Be Very Afraid, Stephen Heppell thing, is that these kids, when you give them a piece of technology, are racing ahead with it in the primary schools in particular, so it does not take them long to catch up. The big thing for us is making sure the teachers begin to share good practice among themselves, that sort of adds a ring thing, so they can see it is that aspiration we were talking about in the tractor situation in the other scrutiny panel about aspirations and motivations. Teachers need that equally as much as the children so they need to share good practice and they need to see what other people are doing and what these things can facilitate. So as you begin to do that, everybody starts to move towards the same angle.

I totally agree with what you are saying. The worry I think we would have from what we saw is in terms of those teachers co-operating between themselves. We were among a particular primary school where clearly the head teacher has got them co-ordinated. They have got an I.T. teacher that is co-ordinating the teachers, trying to get them involved; they have their meetings outside of school. Yet, we have been to another primary school where it is almost a complete opposite. Again, I would not say it is a worry for us right now because it is a very early stage, but what we would like to see is this divide grow to the point where it is going to affect pupils' progress further down the line.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, the pupils have an entitlement and we would work through the Professional Partnering programme to ensure that children in each of our schools got their entitlement. That does not necessarily mean that every school is going to do it the same way but it is important that the children get their entitlement. But this is not just about technology; this is what we do. You could apply the same argument to standards of English, to standards of mathematics. It is about managing standards right across the service in a consistent way and that is what we try to do. We set expectations for the young people as they come out of primary school in all those subjects and there would be expectations around their use and understanding of I.T. We will use the systems and processes that we have already got in place to be able to assess whether a school is where it should be and if it is not to provide whatever action that we can to help it improve.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well that is an important point because - and I am thinking of one particular school but I am not going to name it for obvious reasons - if a school has got a specific issue such as English as a second language, and there are some schools that clearly have got 50, 60 per cent of people with English as a second language, will you be putting a social premium on those schools to ensure that they have got sufficient resources to get around some of the issues they have got within those schools or a system through those schools?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

From the position of an educationalist, I would not really approach it like that. I would say those schools are in a tremendous position. They have got a real opportunity now to use technology effectively to address the needs of those young people and to improve their standards and to help them access the language which maybe is proving a little bit difficult for some of them. So it is a question of whether or not you look at this as an issue and a barrier and a challenge or whether you look at it as a real opportunity. So when we would look at the plans for those schools, we

would expect to see those schools using I.T. in an effective way to address what they see as challenges.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

But the answer to your question is, no, you will not be looking to impose a social premium for these students?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have not got a social premium at the moment. We have a social premium in the next skills strategy. You will note that there has been additional resources included in the skills strategy. I think it is 2 point something million additional resources in the skills strategy to provide additional support for young people who are children who are not making the progress that they need to make. So if we secure that resource at the next Medium Term Financial Plan, yes, we will but we are not using funding currently from the I.T. budget to be able to do that. Having said that, we would expect schools to make sure that when they spend on I.T. that they are not creating a social divide within their own school. So, for example, if they are following a Bring Your Own Device strategy, then that school needs to be very conscious as to the impact that that is going to have on children who will not have their own device at home. When schools such as the one that you were talking about are taken into consideration, that is exactly what we would be looking at. Are they going to ensure that everybody is going to have access if they have not got the devices at home?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

In addition to this though, of course, this does not affect or have any negative impact on the existing budgets for special education need or for English as an additional language need. Those separate budgets remain intact and will have their inflationary increases applied in the normal way. So if there are schools that are impacted on that, then we would need to look at it through the other budgets that there are to ensure that none of that gets degraded.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Have you made any consideration in terms of buying any particular hardware or looking at bulk buying in that regard to ensure that obviously schools are getting the same equipment?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. Well they may not all get the same equipment. It would depend what the emphasis of the school's approach is but, yes, if the money goes out to the schools then we will manage the purchasing back at the department so we will take advantage of all the offers that are out there. In actual fact, bulk buying does not have a major impact when it comes to educational software and

hardware because most of the big providers like Apple and Microsoft will provide significant discounts for education that you are not going to better.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Have any decisions been made, in terms of Bring Your Own Device, what device might be the desired ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well if it is Bring Your Own Device it will be literally bring whatever you have got.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

The work that we are doing is around the infrastructure within the schools, the wi-fi networks which we are piloting to ensure that they can cope with what we would expect them to cope with.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Sorry, just one last question.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

No, go ahead, you are doing it well.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

It is just one issue and it is around Bring Your Own Device because obviously there are all sorts of devices and they are all sorts of prices and they are all sorts of quality. One of the comments that we have made is the potential for conflict among students and the possibility of bullying in terms of not having as good a device as the next guy.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: Yes.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Have you thought about how you are going to get around that and also the demographics of schools as well? Because you are going to have some schools in some areas where the parents probably will be a little bit better off than some in the central part of St. Helier , for example, and that is no disrespect to the central part of St. Helier by any means.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

This is not just related to technology; schools have been dealing with this stuff for years.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : It certainly is not.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Whether it is about trainers or sweat shirts or whatever it is.

The Connétable of St. Mary : Yes, tell me about it.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

You have always got that sort of situation where you have got potentially some children who can afford better than others and you have to manage it within the school but that is the nuts and bolts of running a school. So we would expect teachers to be able to manage that and to be conscious of it. That is the first part: be conscious of it and to ensure that young people who could potentially be in that situation can access a device in school.

[15:45]

So everybody else might be bringing their own device but the school will make sure that ... well we would expect the school to make sure that less well-off children have access to something in the school.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

We have got to be agnostic about it because there are different generations for all these devices and they all supersede each other at some point in time. I think even within the States, even as we sit here, there are a couple of iPads and I think Christine, you have a Hewlett Packard or something or other so, you know?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I cannot emphasise this too strongly: the danger to this I.T. strategy is it being perceived to be about hardware and software.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

It is about changing the nature of teaching, changing the role of teachers and changing the relationship between the teacher, the learner and the learning.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Have you resolved all the issues around the safety policy?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well, we did not have any issues around the safety policy. Some of our schools had issues around the safety policy in the sense that ...

The Connétable of St. Mary : Okay, is this the corporate you?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. We have a managed service and a managed service is, if you look at the offset stuff, that is really the preferred option. The problem with our managed service is that most stuff was being locked down at the department and schools required a degree of expertise to unlock it. Some schools were willing to take that responsibility on, some schools felt less secure with it. So we will continue to provide a supportive service for those schools who are not confident enough to deal with it yet. Those schools who are confident enough and who have got the skills to manage it can have the responsibility for doing it and obviously the accountability that goes with it.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Just going back to teacher training just for a second, I think you have answered it within your Professional Partners within the schools but in terms of teacher training being monitored to ensure that consistency grew, is that something that will be monitored by the partners themselves?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. It will fall into the framework for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of a school.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Okay. How are we going to manage the situation where currently ... or what input will the department have in terms of trying to get some of the schools to catch up because clearly some are a little bit behind now in terms of the way they have implemented it. Some are, I think, very positively looking forward to how they are providing that teaching within schools. How are those other schools going to catch up?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Okay, so you have the overarching policy document for the service. You have got the schools who have put in their initial bid and their plans, in essence, their own vision for the school which has to fall into this. Then schools are used to producing annual business plans that go alongside the resourcing, so in January each year we will expect them to have a completed school development plan that highlights the key issues for the school and shows how they are going to use the resources. So if, for example, we go into a school and we find out that this school has got problems in a particular area, is not moving fast enough in a particular area, then we would feed that back to them. We would like then to see them actioning something to address those concerns in the next business plan and resourcing it appropriately. So if you have got a school, for example, that is not hitting the standards we expect it to hit in terms of English and mathematics, well then that is the first thing we look for in the annual business plan next time around: what are you doing about English and mathematics? We want to see that set out more, see how it is being resourced; it would be exactly the same for that ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

It would be no different with the I.T. side of it?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: No different.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Chairman, I wondered then, as we talk about teacher training, what provision has been put forward for teaching assistance?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well we would expect teaching assistance to be part and parcel of the training package. So we have not made any special provision on that yet but we have not designed a training programme for teachers either. So it is more about whole school staff then it is just about teachers but obviously we would expect the teachers to be taking the lead in the classroom. Not all the time of course, but if you are going to a secondary school we would expect the head of department to be taking the lead in implementing the vision for I.T. in whatever that subject was, working with all the heads of departments and ensuring that teachers and teaching assistants in that department are well-versed in it and well-trained to deliver it.

Deputy J.M. Maçon: Thank you.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Issue around training: so this is a little bit of a wider question; it is something probably that the Minister might want to answer, I think, as well. In terms of training, has there been any collaboration with Digital Jersey or digital industry in terms of assisting teachers in understanding technology and perhaps the opportunity maybe to be a little bit more creative in the classroom or do you see it as something that will build as time goes on?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

It is a difficult one for me to answer specifically in the terms you wanted me to do it but I do see it building as time goes on. I think there is already, through the Digital Hub, facilities and good work going on. Yes, you were talking about consistency before, some schools are further ahead than others so it really falls into the same thing as the director has been talking about, is that some schools are naturally, as you would expect, ahead of others. I see it growing.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Can I cut in?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Today is a good illustration of us working very closely with other factors. Before I came here I was talking to C5 to a luncheon there, which is a bunch of parents. Included in that luncheon there was a coding club who works up at Digital Jersey and we were talking about the differentials between us and how we accommodate each other. I have been up to the Digital Hub 4 times now for different occasions, working with different people. This evening - and I hope I did send you an email about it - we have got this enterprise thing which is slightly different but talks about the greater vision of what we are trying to achieve here which is bringing in the point, thank you very much, Constable, about creativity being taught in the schools, that there is a constant vision all the way through that these kids, as they learn these digital skills and using the techniques that they were learning in their education, will then go on to deliver them practical and entrepreneurial methods. So it is making sure that we do that all the way along. We constantly talk to Paul Masterson at Digital Jersey about what we are doing. He has got another situation coming up, I think, in September that we said we would work closely with. I think you saw, or I think you attended the Heppell thing, which is really basically all Heppell did at that point in time was collate all the projects that are being done within the schools and put it on display. He himself has been around a couple of the schools, St. Martin 's and Hautlieu, so, yes, I think we are working very closely with the digital sector. C5 is a real illustration of ... they are now what was once Itex and a lot of others. They have eaten up all the little fish and, yes, there you go.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have representatives of the digital industry sitting on governing bodies so some of those players have been influential in the development of the business plans so will have gone through the secondary school governing bodies.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

The 2 situations though are not the same. Digital Jersey is there to develop digital industries within Jersey. Although we overlap with that and we may well be producing greater numbers of students that will take part and be involved in digital industries in the future, what this strategy is about is enabling that kind of situation I have just described. But it is also about a much wider issue. It is about using the technologies that are available and increasingly, as they become more sophisticated, to increase that knowledge and use of technology right across the whole gambit of education, learning and not necessarily to produce young people that are going to take part and participate in the future of a digital industry in the Island. It is a much wider thing. We do overlap but that is not the be-all and end-all of what we are trying to achieve in the education system.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I think we do understand enough to produce pupils with a broad range of knowledge and skills when they come to the industry but I did ask the Minister for Economic Development about the opportunities for producing our own students that have got an opportunity to go into the digital industry and obviously take part in it because it is an industry that we would hope is going to ...

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Both Rod, Christine and the director can give you a lot of examples of where, for example, coding is taking place which is right on the nail of what you are talking about in participation in the digital industry in the future. Rod, do you want to just explain?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Well I can give you ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Can I just quote here first and then obviously ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Yes, of course you can.

... because you can answer from this as well. In terms of that collaboration between Digital Jersey and the Education Department, and I am just repeating what he said here: "I believe that Education have gone down their own route and are not decided that Digital Jersey is the best channel to which to deliver that particular programme and that is providing students. I think that is a little bit frustrating. We need to try to ensure that there is closer collaboration and co-ordination when clearly the expertise exists." What they are trying to say is there is expertise within Digital Jersey's ... as we see at the Digital Hub now and that they are not getting the right sound bytes from the department as such.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, that came up, there was a press article about it, and I did speak to the Senator about it. I think he was just basically misinformed, to be fair.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Okay.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

The evidence is already there. The first digital T.A.G. (Technical Action Group) was Education; the last digital T.A.G. group will be Education. They have nearly all disappeared. Why is that? Because we work closely with them. In fact, if you go into the Digital Hub, like I said, I have been up there 4 times recently, you will see teachers effectively using that creative space and it probably is the best creative space that we have in Jersey now. To that end they are bringing in students, they are mixing students with the businesses, the small businesses they have got there, so that is an illustration. When I was at C5 there was a young lad, I will not give the name, who I had seen as a disaffected youth in Highlands who had gone through the system, had dropped out and had come back again. I picked him up at some point when I had gone into have a little chat with them. He is now working with Stuart Philip in Highlands College working on his I.T. We said hello to him and we had a good chat and there he is working in C5. I think this has been misaligned in this sort of context. We are working very closely with them. We looked at what Stephen Heppell was ... you have got to remember this was not a consultant that we were consulted about in the first place. He was not brought on by us; he was brought by Digital Jersey to ... and in fact at the very event where he was brought on I was with the chap Julian Box from Calligo who heads up the Digital T.A.G. at the conference. I met Stephen at that point and Julian said: "We are bringing this guy on." I was quite impressed because there was a guy at an educational conference to do with I.T. who was the only guy who had children on his stand, so this was something you knew this guy could connect. We were running a bit of a parallel path at that point. At the very beginning, Digital Jersey did not even exist and so as we crept through, like I

say, the educational T.A.G. was then created and Christine, I am sure can amplify this, but she has worked very closely with a lot of the stuff that we had done. So the Digital Hub is an example of Christine working with them and suggesting, along with Carl Howarth and John McGuiness: "Why do you not have something of value, some place that these people can meet and mix?" and that was down to Christine, I think is right?

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, the sort of student element event initially came out of that. The Digital T.A.G. went into a sub-group and initially came out of an idea of the sub-group to say it would be nice to have a site or a place for the children to mix off school premises where they can just experience and share things together. So that was one of the ideas they managed to take forward and just all went along with their own business side of the hub.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Do you think there has been some initial misunderstanding between the aims of Digital Jersey and where you saw I.T. provision within schools?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think it was a frustration; I do not think there was a misunderstanding. I think it was a frustration from that industry looking at us and thinking: "Can you not do all of this quicker?" The dislocation stuff that came when they started - not necessarily Digital Jersey but some of the digital industry - going directly to schools and saying: "We are going to put 3D printers in" putting it straight in the press, not even talking to the heads. Of course, that creates a bit of a frisson and a bit of conflict but we were always standing back from that saying: "Hang on a second, there are needs for us to meet across this thing and to have this bigger vision to understand that" so I think we have gone past that point. So I was quite surprised to see the article from Senator Maclean but I think I have explained to him now that we pretty much are working very closely with what they think ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

So you see very much that relationship is growing now rather than ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Well it is. If you just take those 2 examples. We heard about the 3D printers through the press; none of the schools knew about it. In fact, the head of the school where these were meant to go in, did not know anything about it. The notion of the space project, which is this satellite which everything seems to have gone quiet about, again was created outside of our sphere, as it were, so I think what they have realised is that there are 2 differentials here that their education needs to be going on again. We were reflecting the fact that the I.T. industry is about 3 per cent of the

working population and so when you see the figures they tend to represent that from our perspective.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Do you think that they are working at a level now that is a bit more collaborative with you in terms of the coding clubs and things like that?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

That is more in keeping with what you are trying to achieve with your students?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

There was an element today where the person who is running the coding club would look at us and say: "You did not have it, so we had to create it." You have to sort of take that on the chin and say: "Yes, there is a gap of some kind and that is why you can exist." Yes, we are working very closely with them.

Deputy J.M. Maçon: Chairman, if I could ...?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes, yes, go ahead.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

I wonder if I can just ask then on that point, in previous hearings we know we have been waiting for the new I.T. curriculum and what impact that is going to have on Jersey. Can I just ask then to begin with what the thrust of the newly-created or newly-revised I.T. curriculum is and how that has changed with reference to Jersey?

[16:00]

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, we can provide you with a copy of it. There is an emphasis on computing as opposed to a more generic syllabus which was around the development of I.T. skills, I.T. skills for business. They are still part and parcel of it but there is a more specific element now and a more specific curriculum to do with computing. But I think that is where it sort of follows on from the previous

question around the relationship between Digital Jersey and the department. Digital Jersey, although it is a wide focus for Digital Jersey on the Island of Jersey, it is about attracting and encouraging the fertilisation of the digital industries in Jersey. The education aspiration is much broader. It is preparing people to live in this digital age, and who knows what it will look like in the future, and be able to exploit the opportunities that that will provide which may be in technology. But it may be just using technology to take the advantage of opportunity elsewhere, so it is a much broader agenda. The danger is that the whole thing becomes perceived to be a strategy that will turn coders out of schools to take up roles in the small businesses in Jersey. That may well happen, and we would encourage that, but I do not think it is going to happen to the extent that some people believe it will happen.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

You cannot probably rate your numbers?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

You can and it goes back to the conversation we had at a previous scrutiny meeting when you were talking about the skills that you need for the future. How many plumbers do we need next year? How many coders do we need next year? These are difficult things to predict. You cannot use the education service to turn out a specific number of people skilled to do particular jobs the following year. You can do that by other means but that is not the job of the education service essentially. So the computing curriculum we can give you a copy of, but the computing curriculum is just a small part of what we are trying to deliver in terms of technology education in schools.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Leading on from that, and you have kind of touched on it, but certainly from what we have heard, does Education accept that the priority for education has got to be the curriculum and the needs of industry will have to come second to that?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

No, it is not quite as simple as that. When you talk about the needs of industry, these things are all starting off in a way, we have been through this before with Finance, and you end up with a partnership that develops that enables the education service to understand what it is that Finance are looking for and to provide young people with the generic skills that will enable them to make choices to go into that industry or to go into another industry. It is not the role of the education service to turn out people for individual industries. It is the role of the service to turn out people with the generic skills that will enable them to make the choices and then pursue whatever further training they need. So I do not think there is any real conflict there but if you go back to the early days with the finance industry, there was a real recognition that schools needed to understand the needs of the industry but also that the industry itself needed to do more in schools. The partnership that developed out of that has been sustained and has had a significant impact on schools, on young people, and in relation to the attractiveness of the finance industry. Now if you relate that across to the digital industries, I think it is 2 per cent of our young people are studying something technology-related at universities at the moment. That is quite a high proportion but the question is: where are the jobs? It is a chicken and egg situation, is it not? The jobs have got to be there, the industry has got to be there to make it attractive for young people to want to study the subject, to follow a career in those industries. I guess if you were to go to some of the high flyers in terms of technology, their aspirations would be to work for some of the giants of the technology industries rather than maybe some of the smaller to medium-sized firms in Jersey. So the work of Digital Jersey complements the work of the education service. Young people will come out of the education service wanting to work in a local digital industry but the local digital industry has to be there, so the jobs need to be created. That is obviously where the role of Digital Jersey comes in.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Just to pursue this a little bit further, is there anything in the new curriculum that industry through Digital Jersey has come to you and said: "We think these areas need to be covered as well"?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well, not industry locally but industry nationally has influenced the development of the new computing curriculum in the U.K. (United Kingdom) and we have simply taken that and adapted that. We have adopted it and adapted it as has been the Minister's broad strategy for all of the new curriculum subjects. So in that sense, yes, industry has had some influence on it but locally we have not had a consultation about it, although I think it is something that has been discussed at the Digital Jersey T.A.G. group.

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have and also when we first started we went around industry and they supplied the skills that they wanted as opposed to the actual jobs, so the core skills that people need in the future. We made sure that they were taken into account when developing both the strategy and within the curriculum.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Talking in terms of flexibility, whether you would agree with this or not, it is again a comment from the Minister for Economic Development: "We do not, in my view, have to be wedded or should be wedded necessarily to the U.K. curriculum. I think there needs to be a degree of flexibility to allow us to take advantage of opportunities as they evolve and they will do and continue at a rapid pace" and I suppose it is around "evolve". Have you got the ability within the current I.T. curriculum that you are going to be putting into schools to allow that flexibility that should something evolve, we can adapt to it?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well you can. In actual fact, if you were to look at the old curriculum, it was not as bad as it was made out to be because it offered well-trained, well-qualified and skilled teachers the opportunity to deliver quite a creative menu for students. It was less effective when it came to teachers who perhaps did not have the same experience in I.T. I think that the thing we have to be conscious about are the qualifications. We can adapt the curriculum but our students follow examinations that are set in England and we have got to make sure that whatever curriculum we put them on enables them to achieve the standards that they need to achieve in order to get good results.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well if this I.T. strategy is as successful as you obviously ... well I think we would all like it to be in terms of changing the culture of teaching in schools, presumably that flexibility will be much easier to put in place?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well, absolutely. Flexibility is the key word in the whole of the strategy but when it comes to the actual qualifications - and there is a sort of a conflict on this one - you will have some local employers who will say: "I want young people to have the skills but I do not necessarily expect them to have the qualifications" which is all right as long as the young person has the guarantee of a job for life. But of course if that is not the case, then the young person will want to have qualifications that will give them a passport to another job should that one not be there in future.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes, to another job. Absolutely.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Can I give you 2 illustrations of that evolutionary process because one is a very practical one? When I spoke at the I.O.D. (Institute of Directors) about the kind of projects that children are working on at the moment across the world, I was talking about the Google offer that 25 per cent of their time could be spent by anybody that is employed by Google on anything they like provided it is to do with Google, so if they love photography they can do that. Stuart Philip at Highlands took this on board and he has given 10 per cent of his budget and 10 per cent of his time to the students to work on practical problems that they can begin to enter this world of entrepreneurial things which has been quite engaging for them because they have had to really consider what it is but it runs parallel with what they are doing with the teaching. Equally, at a conference that Mario

and I attended, there was a chap called Ian Livingstone, the guy who invented Dungeons and Dragons, who now owns a massive gaming concern, gave a fantastic presentation about the creative industries in which he illustrated that if you talk about C.G.I. (Computer-Generated Industry), you talk about games applications, you talk about all the things that you may consider are fundamentally new in the I.T. world, all of it, Britain stands at the top of all of them. Most people would think it is America or Japan or whatever; we stand at the top of them. If you look at the 3 top games that are being used as applications in Google and iPads at the moment, the top 3 are English-born games. Now that was something that I brought back and literally is an illustration ... I have got a meeting with Ian Gorst , the Chief Minister, and Senator Maclean to talk about the creative industry to put that out there as something that people can aspire to and realise the kind of thing that Mario has been talking about.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

A change of tack a little bit, all right? We have talked about technology really being across many different platforms; technology for life rather than technology as an end in itself. Obviously we have got the e-Government strategy coming on, has the department had much input into the e- Government strategy and are we looking at skilling-up adults through night schools, things like that, to help people who have missed out on this out there?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well, in relation to the first point, yes, we have been involved. In fact, we will be piloting some of the streams of the e-Government strategy so, for example, school admissions. We would like to get school admissions online, higher education grants, sports bookings. Off the top of my head, those are some of the things that we are piloting. Of course, we have already worked in the past with the arts organisations to ensure that people can book their tickets online, et cetera, so that is one aspect of it. The e-Government strategy is a quite comprehensive strategy so once the first phase is done, I guess that we will have elements in the second phase and the third phase as well. So, yes, we are fully involved in that. In relation to adult education, there have been adult education courses at Highlands College in relation to I.T. Schools have in the past made their facilities available, particularly to parents. It is usually down to the schools whether or not they wish to start those initiatives. We have not set any funding aside to make this a major strategy across all the schools, whether we open them up to the public, and it would require funding if we are going to do it because it costs money to keep the schools open, it costs money to provide the tuition.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Sure. That must be quite useful if the schools are able to do that because if the youngsters are going home with their skills that they are learning in the classroom and they are going home to parents who perhaps are not involved in that industry and do not do it at all, there is no ... I did maths at A-level and my children come home with their maths books and I thought: "Hey, that is not what I did" so I am sure it must be very confusing for some of the parents.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

There was a fantastic illustration given by the Welsh school which is one of the ... were you there at the event? I cannot remember.

The Connétable of St. Mary : No.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Okay, well what they did was they took a big breath back in the same way as they are rolling out their digital strategy and said: "What can we do to engage the community?" So very cleverly they went out into the community and said: "What have you got? What are your skills?" As a prime example they took the skills of an 80 year-old woman who says: "I do knitting." Sounds like nothing at all and they said: "We will back that." They brought them into the schools, I think there were about 20 or 30 of these individuals, and then said: "Okay, you can be part of what we are doing. We need some people to learn knitting, you come in and help us with that. What do you need?" They said: "As old people we are just not very good with the competent skills of I.T." So the kids then at the primary school would then start teaching the old people, so that wider community thing took them up to such a level that they became an award-winning school. I remember talking to the teachers after the event and there was a little ripple had gone through saying: "We need to look at some of these initiatives" and I think you will begin to see some of this flowing through from the school.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

In terms of adult learning and certainly Highlands College in particular, it did say in the strategy that Highlands College would also be putting their own business plan together. Have they done that and, if so, are they looking to implement the same sort of teaching basis and areas that schools will be doing?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I am not sure whether you got any update on Highlands' data as of yet. I know they are putting their own bid together.

Finance Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have had a first draft bid in from Highlands and it has sort of gone broadly following, in effect, learning which is very similar to some of the schools as well. Obviously they are at a higher level and they need to think slightly differently from the schools but there is no massive difference between them.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Highlands College, of course, provide a broad range of university-specific courses for the technicians who work in local businesses.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

It is not just an issue I think for Education; it is an issue for government more generally but in terms of trying to increase the percentage of the population that can use e-Government, I think it is 7 per cent at the moment, and I think the target is 75 per cent. The 75 per cent does not worry me, the other 25 per cent do worry me and that could be vulnerable groups, the elderly. What is the department's role and how do you see your role developing in ensuring that those vulnerable groups are part of e-Government and part of this new I.T. age?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

From a department perspective, our only engagement would be at Corporate Management Board level when we are involved in the development of the overall e-Government strategy which comes to C.M.B. (Corporate Management Board) and obviously to the Council of Ministers.

[16:15]

We would not have a specific role as an education service in ensuring, for example, that 25 per cent had access to the technology that they may need to use e-Government services. I think there needs to be a general recognition that this is not something that will happen overnight; it will phase in over a long period of time and there will ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

But in terms of teaching those skills and prompting people to use it ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

In terms of teaching the skills, absolutely, but you will see that the majority of young people coming through out of schools nowadays are pretty good at using technology for their own purposes and a lot of them help their parents to do that.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Do you see the role of getting those vulnerable groups involved more a case of sounding out those younger people and engaging them?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Absolutely. Helping them develop their skills is part and parcel of the overall skills strategy which the education service really is one of the lead players on, so there is no question about that. My understanding really was that you were talking about how we might help the other 25 per cent access e-Government services.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I was thinking more through the skills than ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, and the skills agenda is obviously very important to us. There will always be, at least perhaps for the next 10 to 15 years, a need for other methods to be available for people to access government services.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Do you think that is part of the next phase?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think there will always be a percentage that does not access government services online, even say your whole of your 25 per cent is at some time in the future going to go down to zero, there will always be a need for alternative ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

These things naturally shift. If you think about it, if you looked at the Annual Social Survey that has come out of the last few years, you will see an increase in the number of people who have level 2 qualifications in the community. The main reason behind that was we changed the school leaving age in 1996. I think it was 1996. Before then 15 year-olds were leaving school with no qualifications, so they are moving through now. Children do not leave with no qualifications and I think at some stage people will become so used to accessing services through an e-Portal, you will have a very small percentage that do not.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Talking about portals, the one thing that we have not mentioned is the library and the considerations and initiatives they are considering there. At the moment you can get wi-fi and they are teaching E. C.D .L. (European Computer Driving Licence) in the library and those courses are growing. In fact, we are shifting areas of the library around to accommodate it. I do not know if you have been in the library recently but if you go up on to the first floor, there is an area that is dedicated to computers, whereas instead it was just a small area down the front.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Who generally accesses that? Is it ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Well it is the general public. It is just any ...

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Do you have a demographic?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes, the demographic is quite wide. I was up there the other day to talk to Ed Jewell the new librarian. In fact, the consideration I had asked him to consider, or what I wanted him to look at - there is a sort of a passport into the wi-fi system - is to take that off and see if we can get wider re- access to wi-fi in that area for that demographic reason so people could just simply walk in and use what they have got. So it is one of the things that he is looking at at this moment in time.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

I wonder just because we are here, and it touches on some of the subjects we talked before, in one sense Education, and even e-Government, they have had their learning portal for a long time now. I would imagine that there are plans to try and use that to grow that in some ways but again it comes back down to this issue of distribution. So again we talked about the Annual Social Survey and how the Internet was taken up but in certain schools of course that would vary considerably. I know, for example, in my own constituency in St. Luke's, they did their own audit about access to the Internet at home which was below the average. I was just wondering what initiatives are being put in place, for example, to encourage children to perhaps stay at school so they have Internet access to be able to do that and those types of initiatives, again, wrapping them up in this digital industry if they do not have, for example, Internet access at home.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I think you probably see more of that in the secondary schools but quite a few of the secondary schools at the end of the school day have got children in the learning centres accessing computers, using the Internet, staying on after school if they have not got it at home. One of the challenges is to encourage those who have not got it at home and perhaps do not feel the need to stay on after school and do it, to take advantage of the facilities. That is the essence of what a school is all about, trying to ensure that young people essentially who have not got ... it is not just about computers. Some of them do not have the quiet room at home to do homework. It is about ensuring that those young people have a place at school to do that, whether that be after school or at some other time during the day.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

The library is doing that as well. If you go up there, again, it is flush with students sitting in there because it is quiet and they can get on with stuff and they have got wi-fi access.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Yes, certainly my kids were there for the exams. Just a quiet place to go.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: There you go, yes.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

In the hearing we had with the Minister for Economic Development, something that his chief officer mentioned, just a place in America near Seattle, in their same demographic as ours, 100,000 people, 9 by 5 roughly in terms of space, they provide free access to everybody, free wi-fi to everybody, within that area. Is that something that we should be considering as an Island if we really want to be as e-Government friendly and ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think it is in the plan certainly and I know Digital Jersey has looked at it. It is not that easy, obviously and with the fibre we are well ahead of the game. In fact, one of the reasons I went to see Ed about this freeing up stuff, as an example I asked Jersey Telecom could they give me a list of all the free access that we have got on the Island. Their answer immediately was no because they do it on an ad hoc basis. So he collated a small list with me and you have got strange things. Like you got free access in the Millennium Park and you have got, like I say, free access and things. I think Ed Vaizey in the U.K. has asked that 100 public buildings be given free wi-fi access. I think just in terms of the scope and the size of this Island we are getting there. I do not think we are on target for that but we are getting there.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

You asked the question do we think it is an important thing for the future and the straight answer is yes, in my opinion, it is. That is how we have endorsed that. In fact, that is one of the reasons why when you go on to the fibre link there is a mandatory outer-facing router which is controlled by Jersey Telecom or the supplier. The reason for that is that at a point in future those outward- facing routers can be switched on to wide area network and wide area wi-fi ...

The Connétable of St. Mary :

I did not know that. So that is in your individual homes?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: I think it is, yes.

The Connétable of St. Mary : Nobody has told me that.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: I am telling you something now which others ...

The Connétable of St. Mary :

They are coming to me on Friday, nobody has mentioned that to me.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

There is a thing called Fon which they have adopted which means that if you are willing to allow people to utilise your ... there is a criteria you go through but if you are willing to allow people to use your wi-fi, you can equally use theirs and that is a global thing. But Jersey Telecom have decided they are going to go down that route.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

It does not mean to say you pay for the extra data that goes through that. That would be something which is controlled from outside.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

All right, we will see what happens there. Can I just go on from there? Has the roll-out of the fast wi-fi with the fibre optic to the schools all happened now?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

The fibre is at all the schools but the contract for the wide area network is out to tender at the moment.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

All right, that is the thing you were talking about earlier? The tendering process that is going on?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Yes.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

What is the timeline on that then to allow the schools to be able to operate with ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well we have an extension of our current arrangement for 6 months. It would be good if we could close it all down within that 6 months but if that was not possible we would have an option to extend our current contract.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Where have you got with e-Safety with the schools in terms of ... is it still going to be centrally governed or will you allow schools to decide their own future?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well schools have the option to take responsibility for it if they are confident enough to do so and they can demonstrate that they have got the ability.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Have any suggested that they will want to go down that route?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: Yes.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Some already have.

Deputy J.M. Maçon: Could you quantify that?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

No, I cannot at this time. I have not got the stats in my head.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

In terms of co-ordinating e-Safety within the department, is there one particular person that is in charge of that?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

There is an e-Learning and e-Safety co-ordinator. Yes, that is right.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

They are working with the schools in terms of providing them the information that they need to make that decision?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: Yes, and training them to do the job.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Okay.

The Connétable of St. Mary :

Everything leads into itself. We overlap on so many areas.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

You mentioned the hub before, the Digital Learning Hub, that Digital Jersey has recently opened. Did you have any input into that in terms of ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We provided them with the initial premises, the new Youth Services premises at St. James, which you may have visited. Maybe not?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : No, I have not.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

At the church. We recommend you visit if you have not.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : I will.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

But we provided those facilities to Digital Jersey to establish the first Digital Hub, which they used. But then, quite understandably, they felt it would be a good idea if they had more of a business environment for the students in the schools as opposed to what was more of a Youth Service school type of environment, so that is why they wanted to move it away from there. But, no, we were involved in it. They brought the plan to us right at the very beginning and we had some initial discussions and we were very supportive of them.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I know it is very early days there but have the schools - and I am probably thinking more secondary schools than primary schools - had any initial contact with them in terms of using that space and getting the feel of it and understanding what it is like?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Yes. I think it is very early days. I think more and more we will gravitate to that at some point in time but for the schools that are out on the periphery, Les Quennevais is an example, it is difficult for the kids to traverse all the way down to that and it is moving. Digital Jersey is moving it slightly from its original concept of a more business-like environment so at the moment you can get in there for free and wander around and you guys, anybody can use it. You can use all the different areas that they have got. It is very cleverly put together. I do think it is probably the best creative space we have got in Jersey. Then subsequently they have got the space being hired out dependent on the little entrepreneurial businesses that are coming in there. But it is still promoted and we have promoted it through the work Christine has done with Tom Hacquoil and various people involved as a place where kids can go with their teachers. Rory Steel is a very good example of that, taking the students down there and doing work with them so, yes.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

When you use the phrase "business-type environment", do you think that it was Digital Jersey's role to provide that? It is not something that Education should provide? It needed that business element to ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

It was in their business plan from the beginning to some extent that there would be a place where they could promote this sort of thing but I think it grew in terms of the context of working with Christine and the various people on T.A.G. into something completely different. People are always looking for these sorts of spaces.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I know it has sort of bit the dust but was there any disappointment on the Education Department's point of view from the space programme plummeting to earth, as it were?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I do not know that it has bit the dust because I see it is still in the strategy, it is still on the website and stuff so ...

The Connétable of St. Mary :

I think the release they gave was that it was dead in the water.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Well I think the notion was - this is noises off - but somebody had to put some information in there to verify what they had achieved over the length of time. Again, it was one of those things that was done separately from us and I am not sure they fully understood the context. It really does show you the sort of linear way in which they think. They thought: "We have got something here that everybody will be engaged with." The majority of kids did not see it as that opportunity. They are much more focused on the kind of things that coding will present them with to do with the creative industry, so gaming and creating C.G.I. and that sort of thing. So I do not think they connected in the right way with that.

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Can I just ask then, because I think the essence behind that programme was to perhaps get a more diverse group into up-taking the I.T. subjects to provide some sort of inspiration perhaps to get the buy-up, what other programmes are going to be in its place whether this particular programme is delayed? Was it not for you, is that for Digital Jersey, or do you feel that the Education Department should introduce something ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

The other programme that is in its place, it is the main programme, which is the curriculum and that is the means by which ... and good quality teaching and learning in the classroom. That is how you stimulate young people hopefully within schools that have some of their own imaginative projects. The space project would have provided some interesting curriculum time for children in the schools but I suppose the question for them was whether or not it was going to be value for money.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

We have got other things like LEGO Robotics which I am sure Christine could talk about. We have got various little things that the kids themselves are really getting engaged with because they are the ones that come with this and say: "What about that?" at the end of the day. Again, it goes back to that Be Very Afraid. So we have got one small club that does animation on the outside. They have come to us now and said: "Is there some way in which we can connect with the curriculum?" So we are always looking at those sorts of things.

Deputy J.M. Maçon: Thank you.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Again, as a more general point, I am not saying anywhere else does anything better than we do at the present time, but when you are putting your I.T. strategies together, do you take into account any related strategies or curriculums in other jurisdictions while you are looking at how you are building your strategy? Give us an example of what you ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Well there was an interesting article we have just picked up from ...

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Yes, I have got it written down here ready for ...

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

... you have got from I think Linux Voice which is an international magazine where the chap who was ...

[16:30]

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Clive Beale.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

... leading up Raspberry Pi was very critical of the English Government's approach to this and very praising of the approach that Jersey is taking. I think when it comes to picking on a curriculum, you can pick up bits of various companies but the concept here was the approach: "Have we got the approach right? How are we going to make a difference?" I think the more research we did on it, we did quite a bit of research, the countries that seemed to be steaming ahead were the countries that recognised that technology in education is more than just a subject, that it is the blackboard or the whiteboard of the future, that it will probably be in the background in future years because the tools that we have today will be the tools that children will expect to have in the classroom. When you think about it, I think we described it earlier on, way back when kids used to cut up bits of paper at home with scissors and colour in, and then they would come to school and they would use scissors and crayons and now they use all this technology at home and they come to school and use scissors and crayons. So it is about bringing the schools themselves into the 21st century and getting teachers to use the technology that is readily available to children at home in the classroom to enhance their learning and in that way to keep children connected.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Sorry, can I just continue that focus on ...?

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Yes, go on.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

It just struck me to some extent there was a view in the digital industry, were not taken with the notion that this guy from Raspberry Pi was really valid in terms of what he was doing here but he just came here and said: "This is fantastic." He was talking to the U.K. Education Department and he said: "If you go to Jersey, there is a great contract of what has been announced in England. They have £6 million for 100,000 people the size of Cambridge. They have fibre to the door, they are linking to businesses" and he mentions the £2 million budget for the training of the teachers and he said: "That is virtually what is being spent on the whole of the U.K., 53 million people" it is within the £6 million. So I think that sort of validates where people perceive us to be and that is somebody that has come here from the U.K. I equally went to Malta to see what they had done, because everybody was saying that Malta was leading the way, and I found it was far from it, to be fair. The thing that was interesting that was different was they had a college there, an I.T. college. They did not differentiate who came into the college, most of the people, and that was started by a 21 year-old who got his first I.T. G.C.S.C. (General Certificate of Secondary Education) there, his first A-level there and just decided that is what he wanted to do; he was 21 at the time. Everybody left with virtually a first class degree but now the island has seen themselves as being a bit more competitive and spread it out a little bit. But certainly looking at them and looking at what they were doing we were ahead of it. Certainly with things like Gigabit and Digital Jersey we were ahead of it. I remember a discussion with the Education Minister where I was describing some of the things we were doing in the schools and she just turned to me and went: "How do you do that?" and I just thought that was a telling comment really that we were quite far advanced without people really knowing too much about it.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

So in terms of your Thinking Differently strategy, obviously there is a huge commitment to it and you mentioned the figures and they are serious amounts of money being thrown at us. Do you think there was a time maybe not so long ago where it was a case of we had to do a little bit of

catch-up? I am thinking back to the event that was held at Hautlieu and we did see a couple of schools at that that were way, way advanced in terms of what they were trying to do within their own environment. But it was one school in the whole of Wales and it was an holistic approach. Do you think that is where we are going to win here because it is an holistic approach from an Island point of view?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think that is a very good question. There was a point when we did not have wheels on suitcases and you can all remember that. We have played a bit of catch-up, there is no doubt about it, but I think we have done it really efficiently and I think people have been quite taken with it. I think launching this in the way that we did and with getting people as close to it as we did, I think they are smitten with the idea. This other stuff that we are doing on the periphery now with things like Jersey Business and with Digital Jersey and everything, it really just calls people's attention so I think you are absolutely right. The director was talking about it before. Remember, this is some small part of it but I think it washes through. Again, my bit has always been about focusing on things like creative industries at the end of it all so that the kids are accommodated for stuff that will be there.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I think it is misunderstood a bit because Jersey had the vision in 1990 to put £10 million into a one infrastructure reno at schools. We had it up and running and every school was operating it before there was a Grid for Learning in England. I am not quite sure what has happened to the Grid for Learning in England but it was up and running. We did pause for a while but the reason we paused is because the way that we have managed these strategies over time, they have always been managed out of capital, so strategy 1 you have got the capital. Then you go through the bidding process to strategy 2. If it is delayed, you have to wait till you get the funding to implement and then for strategy 3. What we are hoping to do in this coming Medium Term Financial Plan is to ensure that there is a sufficient amount in the revenue budget to mean that it can keep progressing at a steady rate rather than having to let things pause for 3 or 4 years and then put in another capital bid.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Previous I.T. strategies have been capital bid based and hardware and software based. That is where they are and that is one of the reasons why we want to do it slightly differently this time. Just thinking differently where it comes from.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

The first time around we provided every teacher with a laptop on the understanding that they would sign up to a course to teach them all to use it.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

One question I have got here, and it is really about on-Island I.T. skills courses at Highlands in further and higher education. What provision have we got for that at the present time and what might we ...

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

It is an important part of Highlands' offering. Do you want to talk about it, Mario?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We have all the training courses in place and we have the foundation degree. So there is quite a lot that is ... have you visited Highlands?

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I am going to have to say no again. I am going to get shot in the foot for this.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: Maybe we could ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade : You are catching me out here.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

Maybe we could get you up there to have a look at what they do and the breadth of provision because I think you would be quite ...

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Okay. Well if I am still here in October, I will think about it.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

You will be quite surprised at the breadth of provision up there.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Okay. Jeremy?

Deputy J.M. Maçon:

No, nothing thank you, Chairman.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Probably my last question is probably going to go over old ground a little bit but in terms of the implementation into schools, where do you think the next big hurdle is? Obviously we have got the business plans more or less ready to implement. Are you happy where it is at the present time?

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I am happy where it is and I think the point the director made right at the beginning about the difference between opportunities and challenges is really good. I think the bit that is not a hurdle but is an opportunity is the teaching the teachers. We have got a fantastic teacher, the deputy head at Hautlieu, Stuart Hughes, who has done an incredible job. You were asking before which bit are we in advance of that, and that is the bit we are in advance of and I think people have just been captured by that.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Well I suppose one point of the areas I did not touch on was the teaching unions. I do not think they have been critical but I think they have been wary about where it is going to go and the potential for extra work for their members. What negotiations have you been having with the unions in terms of making them feel comfortable that this is the right way forward?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

We do work with the unions. We meet with them on the Educational Consultative Council once a half term and we discuss the issues of concern to them. Occasionally we go, and we have done it twice this term, to informal gatherings of union members to talk about the issues. It is understandable that from to time teachers might see a new strategy as bringing additional work. I think this new strategy will only bring additional work if you are still doing the old thing while you are trying to do the new thing at the same time. This has the potential to make teachers' lives much better. But having said that, we understand their concerns, and we have established a working group with the unions to look at workload.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think the emphasis on training is always something that is well received by the unions. Enhancing the professional abilities and professionalism generally of teachers is always supported by the unions. That is in my experience, from what I can see.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Do you think that the unions and the teachers understood it is an opportunity?

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: I think they do.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

It is not just about teaching the pupils but it is an opportunity in terms of assessing pupils and being able to save a lot of time by doing it, as I saw in one of the schools, on an iPad, for example, and they are doing it as they are going and I think there was not a lot of opportunity. Do you think they realise that?

Director, Education, Sport and Culture:

I think a lot of teachers do realise that. Absolutely.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

You are talking about a bunch of very professional people generally in teachers. They have all got degrees, they are all clever people and they all understand that to keep ahead of the game generally and to enhance the learning experience of the people that they are responsible for that these moves in technology circles are absolutely necessary. So I see nothing but positive feedback really, from what I can see.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

To wear another hat here for a second, when involved in the public sector reform in the workforce modernisation, it was the unions who said that on the teaching side in particular they were very keen to work with everybody to make this happen, being sold the opportunities again.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

I think also the unions contrast what we are doing with what their members are experiencing in other jurisdictions.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I was going to say presumably they are fairly up to speed with what is going on in England/Wales, for example, in terms of what they are trying to produce there and what we are trying to do here.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

Well I think that is evidenced also. The teaching unions are very keen to get together and co- operate with a review in other areas of general education and that is close to being started.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

Okay. Now I think we have exhausted all our questions, unless there is anything that you want to ask us or anything you want to add particularly.

Director, Education, Sport and Culture: No.

The Connétable of St. Brelade :

No? Well can I first of all thank you for coming today and, secondly, thank the Minister, Assistant Minister, Director and everybody at Education for the help they have given us in terms of the review because I know the view was it was a bit early to look at it. But I do not think it was too early to look at it. It was a good opportunity to have a look to see the value it was going to be adding to teaching in Jersey and certainly the opportunity to improve it for young people and students, so I think it was the right time to do it. I hope we have not been too pushy but I do appreciate the fact that you have given us all the documentation that we needed to get to the stage where we are now. Hopefully we will crack on and finish our review.

Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture: Thank you very much.

The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture:

On behalf of all the officers and the ministerial team, I would just like to say it is our pleasure. It is what we are there for.

The Connétable of St. Brelade : Thank you very much.

Deputy J.M. Maçon: Thank you.

The Connétable of St. Mary : Thank you.

[16:42]