A department of education has an important leadership role in encouraging, supporting and regulating educational matters; typical educational services include governance and leadership, instruction, quality assurance, information, counselling, human resources, learning products and funding.
Education itself is a complex set of services with both a major administrative and professional side; integrating the operation of an education system into government has some downsides for education, the most obvious being the loss of professional autonomy and accountability. Having education embedded in government may also contribute to the “fear factor”, uncertain standards, and lack of flexibility. Both the OECD and the World Bank recommend switching autonomy and accountability for day-to-day operations from ministries to schools themselves. In addition to improving quality, such a move frees a ministry to focus on leadership.
The 21st century calls for a dynamic education system; a system that is committed to helping Islanders and Island institutions prepare for and cope with change. It calls for dialogue, collaboration, engagement, flexibility and innovation. It means vacating our silos, restructuring services and engaging with the people we serve — education’s future lies in providing a full educational services, some but not all of which may be paid for by government.
Re-establishing elected trustees is part of the same agenda.
Don Glendenning,
Charlottetown
