New education minister to visit all Manx schools

Daphne Caine said funding would remain a challenge at the department

Visiting all of the island's schools and engaging with teachers, parents and pupils will be a top priority, the newly appointed education minister has said.

Daphne Caine was appointed to head up the Department of Education, Sport and Culture last Wednesday.

She replaced Julie Edge, who was removed from the post by the chief minister in a "mid-term review" of the Council of Ministers.

Ms Caine said while she was "very excited" take up the post, it was not something she had lobbied for, but that "politics is a brutal business".

The Garff MHK said it had not been not an easy decision to give up her role within the Department for Enterprise, where she had responsibility for the visitor economy and motorsport as she was "very happy there".

However, the former children's champion said she had always had a "passion" for education.

Funding challenges

Looking to her next steps, Ms Caine said she wanted to "build on the excellent work that has been achieved in the past two and a half years" by Ms Edge.

But she admitted one of the key challenges would still be funding, despite the allocation of an additional £18m to the department in the next financial year.

Ms Caine said: "It’s a very salary-heavy budget in terms of the allocation of what goes out from the education spend."

However she said she was looking forward to progressing "the childcare strategy" to make the "availability of childcare places for the island" more affordable.

Ms Caine said she also wanted to focus on "support, funding resourcing for additional needs, the technology that’s in schools, and life-long learning".

"The vision for the future is for us to have the best possible education system that the island could want," she said.