A former secondary school head teacher claims the island’s education system is heading ’disastrously in the wrong direction’.

Harry Galbraith, a former head of Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel, has voiced his concerns to the Chief Minister in a letter about the proposed new Education Bill by the Department of Education, Sports and Culture.

’The proposed Bill focuses on control rather than what’s important and that’s the children and the teaching,’ he told the Manx Independent.

’I’d like them to do a complete re-think because they’re thinking in the wrong way.’

In his letter to Chief Minister Howard Quayle, he raises a point about section 29 that states: ’The department must by order prescribe a curriculum which must be provided for all registered pupils of compulsory school age at maintained schools.’

Mr Galbraith (pictured) said: ’I look back at my time as head of one of the most successful mixed comprehensive schools in both this and the adjacent island and was never told how I should manage the school not did any one member of the department "prescribe" a curriculum for me to follow.

’I wonder who in the department has ever designed a curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.’

He has concerns about section 22, which outlines the penalties for head teachers and governors who have not complied with directions under the Bill. This includes the dismissal of a governor or head teacher who ’appears to the department to be unable or unwilling to perform functions’ in accordance with the act.

’I am not implying that the actions of teachers and governors should not be subject to scrutiny, but surely there must be a higher standard of mismanagement that mere dissatisfaction,’ he wrote.

’If the department has appointed highly qualified men and women to run its schools, why does it need to impose such rigid levels of control over those that it has appointed?’

Mr Galbraith became the acting head of QEII in 1984 before he was given the permanent role in the following year. Before that, he was the deputy head of a school in England after teaching for several years.

During his time in education and since his retirement, Mr Galbraith said he has seen the system change drastically.

While he was head teacher he and the school secretary had control of the school’s expenses, he said, to carry out repairs and give contracts to cleaners and caretakers. Today these tasks are carried out by the government.

’We knew exactly where we were with that money,’ he said.

He claims that schools now have a lot more clerical staff.

’I have no doubt that this has led to fewer teachers,’ he said.

’The department has added pressure on teachers in classrooms with the amount of paperwork that needs to be done.

’There’s far too much. It’s what they do in the classrooms that matters.

’The large increase in data production does not lead to an increasing understanding of children and young people. Only time spent with these pupils can develop this knowledge.’

He added: ’I write from a deep concern that the education system on this island is heading disastrously in the wrong direction.’