Minister for Education and Development Paula Cox has admitted that she now feels she has a "progressive ownership" of her department - after at first taking up the post with some trepidation.

During an interview with The Royal Gazette, Ms Cox said she found working with schools fulfilling, and particularly found the teachers, students and Ministry staff heartening - and that has filled her with enthusiasm for the role. When Ms Cox was first moved from the Ministry of Home Affairs to Education during a Cabinet re-shuffle 15 months ago, she made it known that it would not have been her first choice and it was not, essentially, where her main interests lay.

However, since then, she has started to have round-table meetings with teachers, principals and students, and has tried to include all sides of education in the decision-making. She said: "You look back on the Ministry, and it's an interesting one. It seems like you can see sometimes there are lots of challenges, but, at the same time, it can be most heartening when you see the input in terms of the children and the teachers.

Ms Cox said the longer she worked in education, the more she enjoyed it, although she admitted that it was sometimes frustrating, and results were not always immediate.

"I say to all of them (teachers) when they march and they are about to fire me, I say `now look here, I don't have anything to lose. There is going to be an election, you may have a new Government and you may have a new Minister if you are lucky, so you are not doing it for me.

Ms Cox added: "You are doing it for what you think is right. We are working towards the good of education because nobody is guaranteed any post'. So I think you feel a certain liberation. But I think the more you are in it, the more you grow to like it."

Since transferring to the Education Department, she has concentrated her efforts on improving alternative education outside of the mainstream schools, making parents more accountable, and improving behaviour in the classroom.

She said, in education, there would always be more to do.

"I think maybe I don't always admit it, but I think I'm getting more of a sense of progressive ownership. "I'm enjoying working with the educators; I'm enjoying working with the Ministry; and I'm very pleased that I have the Permanent Secretary I have."