Too many cooks

Any good cook knows that the basis for a great meal is great ingredients. That’s why the best local restaurants use the best local produce.
 
It’s the same with anything. If you’re trying to build something of quality then you get the best raw materials.
 
If you’re a business, you want the best people for the job. You recruit the best and you promote the best. So, if someone comes along and tells you that your recruiting process is fundamentally flawed then you’d better sort it out quickly if you want to keep your business thriving.
 
Then we have Guernsey’s Education Department.
 
A department so wise and knowing that it took an independent report to get through to them what working teachers already knew. 
 
Your recruitment system is fundamentally flawed.
 
What does this mean in practice?
 
Let's take a look.
 
I’m a newly qualified teacher eager to earn some money after years of student life and part time jobs. I want to come back to Guernsey and hopefully put my training to good use and help repay my debt to society given that the Island has spent a fair amount of money on training me in the UK.
 
But there’s a problem.
 
Guernsey doesn’t recruit new teachers until June, by which time the UK has finished it’s similar exercise for jobs starting in the September.
 
Can I afford to pass up the opportunity of a much needed job if something suitable comes up in the UK on the hope that a similar job might come up in Guernsey this year and that I might be shortlisted for that job and I might actually get the job?
 
Too many mights!
 
The odds are somewhat stacked against this happening and I can’t afford to take such a chance. Maybe I’ll come back to the Island once I’ve got a few years experience under my belt.
 
Maybe.
 
Why does our Education department leave it so late?
 
A good question.
 
Maybe it’s such a great system that we don’t need to change.
 
Lets have a look at how it’s worked this year.
 
About 27 vacancies to fill and a whole raft of applicants whittled down to a shortlist of 30 or so.
 
These lucky few then go through an interview process, have references checked etc, and give an example lesson to a real class with a few professionals watching. In short a proper assessment which each candidate should fly through given the rigorous shortlisting process.
 
Sounds like a pretty good system.
 
Except that it didn’t work.
 
Of the lucky 30, a number fell at the assessment stage and some when their references were properly checked, leaving a few unfortunate schools with no full time teacher to put in front of a class come September.
 
This was the position with three weeks to go before the end of the school year.
 
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the only UK applicants we will have seen are those who failed to find a job in the UK this time around and/or those who are desperate to leave the UK system. Not perhaps the best tranche to chose from?
 
Then there’s the problem of centralised control.
 
You’d think that if a school has a vacancy then the Head would interview suitable applicants and then offer the best person the job.
 
Not in Guernsey at this time of year. Central Headquarters must keep the whip hand.
 
Everyone goes into a Pool and the Heads then have to meet and horse-trade to try and fill their vacancies. You might have three Heads fighting over the same candidate but it is HQ who decides. So, the candidate  might end up being offered a job at a school they didn’t actually want to work at because the Head of their favoured school has lost out in the process. Neither get their first choice and neither are entirely happy.
 
Is that any way to run a system?
 
Of course not.