Political Solutions
Education Reform
‘Education, education, education.’ This was Tony Blair’s election chant that gave many people hope for the future of our children. So ten years later, what went wrong?
Labour’s fanfare fizzled out into some kind of half baked fugue with schools being subjected to countless, and generally meaningless, targets. Teachers are still swamped with them and, if anything, they detract from the teacher’s ability to concentrate on teaching. Exams have been ‘dumbed’ down to the point that employers no longer take high school qualifications that seriously. In fact the employers are astounded at how many children leave school that are functionally illiterate and innumerate. The introduction of targets has succeeded only in promoting ‘creative solutions’ designed to meet the target alone, whereas it does nothing to improve the real outcome.
Background
There is no background that would not take a month of Sundays to compile. The educational system has been severely tinkered with so we can only go with what we know and what we see today. Above all, we need to keep it simple.
Proposal
To begin with, all targets should be scrapped except the one that matters, namely exam results. Give teachers the autonomy to teach without the straight jackets of the three Ds: dictation, doctrine and dogma. The national curriculum is more than enough to keep both teacher and students occupied.
The Labour Government introduced the idea of ‘academies’ These are independent schools, non fee paying, centres of excellence where students could specialise in certain fields of expertise; sponsored, they say, by business, faith and voluntary groups. Whilst such a venture may remove the burden of the cost of education from the state it does nothing to ensure that an appropriate level of education is given. It certainly does not address the problems that exist in schools today.
The appropriate level of education is suspect in many schools, particularly those within the inner Cities. It is my belief that the loss of religious assemblies, due to the ever increasing multi faith attendance, stripped the school curriculum of a certain level of moral and ethical guidance. Whilst it was inevitable that religious assemblies would become impractical there was no consideration given as to what form of guidance could take its place. Add to this the growing rights of children and it becomes feasible that we would manufacture irresponsible and unaccountable children with no moral or ethical understanding. Naturally our teachers could wave goodbye to good manners, civility and a sense of being part of a group, currently being promoted as ‘citizenship’. There are many other reasons for this moral decline but suffice it to say that the educational system must stand and be counted among them.
I propose that there should be at least one lesson each week dedicated to life skills, where students can participate in various real life scenarios, like debates, workshops, structured meetings, job interviews, customer service skills and counselling skills. Students will have the opportunity to explore behaviour, politeness, civility, body language, presentation, constructive argument, team work, respect of each other, respect of different opinions and learning to value how different perspectives can lead to a better community. Not only might this encourage better behaviour at school but it would also prepare students for the world of work and to become responsible citizens.
In 2007, the Government proposed the notion of bringing the money spent on each child up to the level that is spent on children in fee paying schools. I believe that this course of action may well assist in allowing children, whose families could not afford to send their children to fee paying schools, to obtain educational funding from their local authority to be spent at a fee paying school if they were accepted as academically suitable.
Grammar schools still have a place in society. Nowadays it has nothing to do with the class system but everything to do with stretching the mind of children to the limits of their ability. Both Grammar schools and fee paying schools should be allowed to select students on the grounds of their ability rather than by a post code lottery. State schools do not have to be seen as ‘sink schools’ either. Local councils (in my area at least) promote the philosophy of ‘inclusion’. That is to say all children must be fully included in all classes and in all subjects. The result of this philosophy is that children who wish to learn are being held back by children who do not wish to learn. The increasing number of functionally illiterate and innumerate children reflects how well this philosophy has worked. Clearly the manner in which inclusion has been applied has failed.
Councils may need to rethink their educational policies as it is blatantly obvious to everyone else that sink schools are created by policy rather than a lack of willing teachers to teach and students to learn. The quality of teaching in State schools should therefore be no different than any other educational establishment. Even at a state school a child can work studiously towards the height of excellence. But more often than not, it is not the school curriculum that holds children back. It is right that every child should be included in the national curriculum but not necessarily in the same class. Rather than exclude students who are disruptive it would be more productive to remove them from a class full of students who are willing to learn and attempt to teach them the same curriculum but in a different class. This will at least allow those students who want to learn the chance to learn. It will also give the teachers the chance to teach, instead of spending well over half the lesson telling disruptive students to be quiet.
It is possible that even disruptive pupils will have a change of heart and come to the conclusion that they do want to learn after all. In this endeavour they should be given the opportunity to return to the behaved class. Successful reintegration is clearly better than exclusion.
Whilst it may not be economically viable to consider free University places in England, it would make sense to me to offer free University places in those academic subjects that would enhance the overall skills of the country. There are skill shortages in many areas, including certain trades. Would it not be a prudent investment to encourage the filling of these skills gaps by granting free tuition of those subjects to University students? And if by filling those skills gaps our country prospers then we may once again review the student fees.
The author is happy to discuss the Education Reform proposal with interested parties.
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