Private school bursaries (FOI)

Request

Details of how many bursary / scholarship / other funding schemes are available per academic year to support the admission of children from lower income families into fee-paying primary and secondary schools in Jersey, with supporting information regarding how many children take advantage of these schemes each year (ie are 100% of the fee-assisted places available per year to Jersey College Preparatory (JCP)​, Jersey College for Girls (JCG), ​Victoria College Preparatory (VCP), Victoria College (VC), Beaulieu and De La Salle utilised?)

If possible, please also confirm whether these schemes ensure funding for the duration of a child's time at that school and figures regarding the % of children at each fee-paying school in Jersey in receipt of this financial assistance vs the population of the school who pay full fees.

Response

The current bursary figures for each school are shown in the table below. Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to figures where there are less than five pupils represented:

Bursaries can be awarded on a full, half or partial basis and are reviewed annually. The funding is dependent on household income and if the family earning were to increase above the threshold the bursary would not be awarded the following year.

Although information about the maximum number of bursaries available to students is not held, the school bursary funds are well utilised and additional funding has been requested from Governors in the past to meet the demand. Bursaries are also available from external parties.

Beaulieu and De La Salle are not defined as a Scheduled Public Authority under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Therefore, the data above represents only Government of Jersey fee-paying maintained schools. It does not include the private schools.

Article Applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.