Quest Lecturer for What is Education, Seminar, Week 5

This is our final seminar for this term, it was with Steve Gullick and he followed on from your last seminar and discussed governing bodies, Steve started by stating that there are a large number of governing bodies across wales that are short of governors, in particular community governors, and governors with a business background, the worst areas tend to be the poorer areas.

Next Steve spoke about Professor Stuart Ranson, he explained his opinions and thoughts about the subject. There is a shortage of governors, but the typical governor is white, middle aged and middle class. Professor Stuart Ranson believes there are less black or minority ethnic governors because they feel:

·         Uncomfortable

·         Perception of racism

·         Have to work while the meetings take place

·         Language

He later goes on to explain why there are fewer young or new parents, these parents tend to have less time available because they are either busy with family, work or children. And there are less lower class governors because they need to travel to the meetings and running a car can be costly, another possible reason might be that unemployed and unskilled workers may question the point of education, because of their childhood experiences.

Following on from this we had a hand out by Peter Earley about the types of governing bodies

·         The abdicators

·         The adversaries

·         The supporters club

·         The partners

It turned out that only 10% of governing bodies where partners the majority were supporters club. Steve also talked about the courses that were run for governors he said that out of 22 local authorities 14 of the schools did not send anyone for the training, so a lot of the courses were cancelled.