The principles underpinning the proposed new Education Bill have been branded ’vague’ by respondents to a public consultation.

The themes of the responses to the Education Bill consultation were released following a Freedom of Information request.

Yes/no style responses were previously released by the Department of Education, Sport and Culture.

In the FoI response, the DESC provided the recurring topics from answers provided in the comments box after each question. Included were any themes which appeared in more than five respondents’ comments.

Question seven focussed on the principles of the Bill and the majority of questions related to the principle that said that ’children, young persons and their parents should have a reasonable degree of influence over the kind of education which is provided to them’.

A total of 49 people said this was too vague and led to the department saying it would be changed so that children, young people and their parents ’where practicable’ would be involved in determining the form of education to be provided.

When asked if any principles were missing, respondents said schools had a lack of ’Christian values’. The DESC said: ’There was a group who wanted the inclusion of a reference to the Christian heritage of the Isle of Man and made reference to faith-based assemblies.’

DESC said that this would be incorporated into secondary legislation.

The most popular theme for subjects that should be compulsory included ’Manx language’ and other topics such as Manx history and culture.

However in its response the DESC said ’the number did not support any changes to the provisions’ aside from that the language should be stated as Manx Gaelic.

The Bill has had a turbulent time since its inception. It was originally due to be before Tynwald in April. It was then announced it would be delayed until after the summer recess ’to collate all the feedback and make the necessary amendments’.

In March it was revealed the Bill had cost over £15,000 to be written as a specialist had to brought in from England to assist with the drafting. During a sitting of the committee looking at the Bill, members were told by Tristram Llewellyn-Jones that lawyers at Quinn Legal said as drafted, the key proposals did ’not comply’ with human rights legislation.

The committee was also told by teaching unions they felt they weren’t being listened to during the drafting and accused the DESC of proposing ’a huge shift of power to the department and the Minister’.