Recruitment for the upper secondary education section annulled

The appointment of the head of the Upper Secondary Education Section is back where it started. On 24 July the cantonal administrative court rejected the appeal lodged against the State Council's decision of 20 March annulling the recruitment procedure. The government announced this on Thursday.

The post had been advertised on 4 March 2024. It covered the leadership of the section which, within the Department of Education, Culture and Sport, oversees the upper secondary schools. The procedure ended with the appointment of Désirée Mallé and Mattia Pini in a job share.

An unsuccessful candidate, the deputy head of a lower secondary school, took the matter to the administrative court. He disputed that the two appointees met the requirements set out in the advertisement: several years of recognised management experience in the school sector, and several years of experience in administrative and staff management.

Two rulings to reach annulment

The case required two decisions by the court. The first established that the authorities had not verified whether the candidates met the requirements. The second went further and found the appointment unlawful, because the qualifications explicitly demanded were missing. From that followed the obligation to annul it.

The State Council then annulled the whole procedure and announced a new call for applications. It will be published shortly, once the ruling has become final.

In the meantime the section's coordination remains with the current deputy, Francesca Pedrazzini-Pesce. She will work with the board of upper secondary school heads and with the support of the School Division. That arrangement holds until the future appointment decision is final.

The case concerns a senior post in the cantonal school system that has been unfilled for more than two years. The sequence also shows how much the wording of a job advertisement matters: the requirements written into the text bind the authority that published it, and the failure to check them was enough to bring down the entire procedure.