Could do better – much better
What mark would our education system get?
IT was at Labour’s 1996 conference, the last before leading Labour to its historic landslide victory that Tony Blair made one of his most memorable quotes: “Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education, education”.
It was a bold and visionary statement. Had he delivered on his promise as Prime Minister, he could have revolutionised education in the way that Aneurin Bevan changed our health system, and he would have been remembered as such in history books. However, post 9/11, Blair rethought his priorities, focusing instead on the War on Terror as the means of securing his political legacy. But his pledge on education remains important and relevant today, because despite major financial investment into education, very little has changed in real terms, and the quality of schooling offered in the UK continues remains a major issue for this country.
Fortunately, another part of Blair’s legacy led to education becoming a devolved issue in Wales. It has provided the National Assembly of Wales with an opportunity to undertake a new approach to education here. Indeed, since devolution we have seen numerous examples of Wales departing from England on educational policy. Chief among these is the issue of top-up fees and the introduction of the Welsh Baccalaureate. Even so, the time has come for a radical re-think of education and a long-term commitment by every party to place it ahead of politics to allow real change to be seen through.
Teachers and lecturers, already swamped with paperwork, may groan at such a suggestion. They’ve endured change after change, often with negligible benefit. Having witnessed increased workloads for their members, and greater levels of stress among them as a consequence, teaching unions are unlikely to welcome such a suggestion. But what we should be looking at is a ground-up reconstruction of education delivery here in Wales, the revolution we all hoped that Blair would deliver. Because we have so many problems within the system today, a piecemeal approach to change will never work. What we need is a complete re-think of the education system so that it delivers from when someone is born until the day they die. The existing rule book should be thrown out of the window. This is a new Wales, and where better to start than by building our very own tailor-made education system?
Such a change will not be easy, not least because some time would be required to research, identify and develop best practice and policy, and cross-party input would be crucial. It would require a great deal of patience from the public and politicians alike, as the impact of such changes could take at least a generation to become apparent. Politicians would also have to resist the temptation to meddle unnecessarily, particularly for headline-grabbing purposes or for short term electoral gain. Funding is another considerable factor in successful change. It could be an eye-wateringly exercise to undertake, and would require an incredibly brave government to commit to such a long-term investment, whose benefits might only be seen way beyond their own time in office.
If it’s going to be so expensive and difficult to devise and implement, then why bother? There’s a simple answer to that question: getting education right is the key to building a robust economy. Indeed, unless Wales radically reforms its education system, then the country will never be able to rebuild and sustain its own economy. If reform goes ahead, it would be possible to shape the kind of economy Wales wants through its education system. If not, greater autonomy from the UK will remain nothing more than a pipedream.
Our children are being failed by the current education system. No matter how hard working, dedicated and brilliant the teachers are, there are fundamental flaws that need to be addressed. The current curriculum is far too restrictive and, as a result, general knowledge is appalling. Employers continually complain about school leavers’ literacy standards. There are huge deficits and shortfalls in our funding structures, and truancy remains a major problem, along with bad behaviour and aggression in classrooms. The quality of our higher education is not as high as it could be, and there hasn’t been a significant change in widening access to higher education. Meanwhile, no political party in Wales appears to possess the necessary vision and policy ideas to attempt to tackle them.
The National Assembly has the opportunity to come up with Welsh solutions to Welsh problems, especially once a referendum on further powers is won. Politicians need to identify what weaknesses there are in our workforce and economy, and focus on devising and delivering an education system that will offer long term solutions to those deficits. And education should not be considered in purely academic terms. We also need to identify the practical skills that are required in Wales, and plan the type of economy that would work here. Proper apprenticeships schemes need to be developed, and we must build a genuine life-long learning approach and opportunities to education to provide ongoing training for a skilled and trained workforce.
Before he entered Downing Street in 1997, Blair must have been fully aware of how education reform could help shape the country’s economy, particularly as he listed it as his main priority for office. Had he stuck to his original vision rather than switching to focus on terrorism, the UK might have been better equipped to deal with this current recession. That opportunity has passed, but we must learn from it and the reform of the education system cannot be put off any longer. To build our confidence as a nation, we need to build our economy. And to build our economy, we need a workforce that has the necessary skills to support it. Change won’t happen overnight, but unless we start tackling difficult issues, Wales will remain as it is – overshadowed and overpowered by its neighbour. The people of Wales deserve better, and it’s the Welsh Assembly’s duty to implement the necessary policies that will turn our aspirations into realities.
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A good article. It is however obvious to everyone including your proverbial blind person. That education in Wales is inadequately funded.the blame for that can go round from the WAG to Westminster. Until our kids are taught by seriously underpaid and overworked teachers in schools that are old and falling apart, I don’t see how we can go forward?
Really enjoyed this article.
My son is due to go to school in 2.5 years time, and I am very keen to see the radical reform that I think we all think is due. Wales does have an opportunity to do so, but I am concern about a paradox in this article….
“Teachers and lecturers, already swamped with paperwork, may groan at such a suggestion. They’ve endured change after change, often with negligible benefit. Having witnessed increased workloads for their members, and greater levels of stress among them as a consequence, teaching unions are unlikely to welcome such a suggestion.”
And then…
“What we need is a complete re-think of the education system so that it delivers from when someone is born until the day they die. The existing rule book should be thrown out of the window.”
Now, we need to be clear on which one it is? A rethink is probably needed, but this must be something with a certain amount of permanence, because it is teachers buy in that will make it a success.
Teachers I would imagine are half likely to view every ‘reform’ as a flash in the pan announcement that it too short term. The foundation phase is certainly something I think is right, as is the need to identify skill shortages in the economy and make sure they are met within education – this also means adult education.
Better still leave the business of reform to the educators and the educated!
Being the spouse of a teacher and the son in law of a former past president of the California Association of school administrators, I can tell you they both groan when they hear a politico talk about education and reform! When my father in law was a superintendent in the LAUSD California had the best schools in the US 30 years ago. Now with cuts in funding its in the bottom 5. I believe that is the case in Wales, however no one has the cojones to speak out about it because of they could endanger their political careers.
I don’t recall buy the 9/11 reason for TB not dealing with education. He did have 4 years to initiate some form of reform of the education system. However nothing that was comparable to the Butler act of 1944, or even the Forster Education Act of 1870, or even Tony Crossland’s reforms of the 1960s.
I know I’m somewhat tardy in posting this reply, but it did catch my attention. I’m no education expert, but I do have a fairly basic grasp of the fundamentals, having a degree in education. I came to the conclusion too that it’s a subject best left to the educators and the educated. I would also go as far as suggesting that there are two groups of people who should be kept as far away from education as is humanly possible; politicians and parents.
I remember being quite taken with the ‘anti-schooling’ philosophy of education, with its emphasis on self education and the development of the whole individual, with the result of turning out what AS Neill described as ‘self-regulating individuals’. In his school, Summerhill formal lessons were compulsory, but only for the teachers. The children were free to attend, or not, as they chose. Remarkably, most children chose to attend, as the onus was on the teacher to do a decent job and keep the kids interested. I’m sure that this is the case anyway in the mainstream system we have at present, and those teachers who do manage to capture the interest of their students have few discipline problems. Children can, and do organise their own education in many places around the world, as is the case with the street schools in India – of course they are assited by adults, but it is the involvement of the children themselves in organising and planning their own education that is crucial.
Interestingly, Summerhill had no rules, bar one, which was a general prohibition of climbing onto the school roof! All else was ‘allowed’, but with the caveat that responsibility had to be taken, and damage paid for – an object lesson in actions and consequences! The vast majority of children attending Summerhill went on to be just the self-regulating individuals that Neill desired of his philosphy, both useful to themselves, and as concomitant, to wider society. Many of those children went to Summerhill as a last resort having been, in modern parlance ‘excluded’ from other schools. Critics may suggest that Summerhill worked because it was a private school. It was Neill’s regret that his ideas were not more widely available to those of limited means, who probably ended up being failed in the local Secondary Modern.
If school were a stimulating and, horror of horrors, a fun place to be, I don’t think the truancy problem would be even a fraction of its present level. After all, who in their right mind wants be corralled and made to do something that appears pointless and boring as well as apparently irrelevant to one’s future career?
Despite the advent of so called ‘Lifelong Learning’, though a laudable aim, education is still, in my opinion still far too much of an experience that ‘happens’ to an individual roughly between the ages of five and eighteen. Added to this is what I think is far too much of an emphasis on academic achievement, as if this was the only worthwhile measure of educational success or failure. Is the government’s aim to have half of all school leavers take up higher, (university) education driven by the need to look good in international league tables? Or is it the result of sound educational thinking? One can hardly blame the higher education institutes for offering the plethora of dubious courses, subject as they now are to the vagaries of the market it’s a case of bums on seats, or they don’t attract the funding. It’s ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’.
No wonder young people appear to be lacking in general knowledge, cannot spell, or use grammar in speech – how often does one hear comments like ‘less clothes’, or ‘It’s only one pound’?
I personally doubt the wisdom of allowing so many young people, mostly of a similar age, entering higher education all at the same time. Access to it should, in my view, be available to all who can take advantage of it, but how many young people around 18-years-old know what they want to do? (On the other hand, what about the 14 year-old who knows what trade they wish to pursue, but is prevented from doing so because of the ‘educational’ need to be at school – where of course, they could become bored and disruptive?) Many would be better off taking a few years out doing something else, like perhaps stacking shelves in a supermarket, sweeping the streets and getting a bit of experience of life. Only a genuine system of Lifelong Learning would accomplish this. But this would demand a radical shift in the way our society approaches the whole issue of education, and it wouldn’t be cheap.
On a final note, the issue of re-training for adults is seriously in need of consideration. Unless an individual has enough disposable income to pay for retraining, (or is fortunate enough to work for an enlightened employer) the options are very limited. For the unemployed, they are offered micky-mouse training schemes that are provided by private sector training companies that have to tender for the contract – leading to the job being done ‘on the cheap’. Up until the Thatcher asset stripping years the Manpower Services Commission offered the Training Opportunities Schemes, usually of about six months in duration, provided in government run centres to an agreed, and high standard and taught by people who had worked in the trades and skills they taught. Had these Skillcentres not been abolished perhaps the skill shortages our society now suffers would not exist?