The key to teaching is engaging young people. If education can excite and motivate students, their potential to achieve highly in school and beyond is enormous. Radical reform of qualifications and curriculum will help us to unlock this potential.
There are a huge number of extremely diverse young people in Britain today who learn in completely different ways. Qualifications and curriculum must adapt to keep up. If we get it right, we can inspire each student to want to learn.
Since 1997, Labour has more than doubled spending per pupil to over £5,850 today. There are a record number of teachers, combined with more young people than ever before gaining at least five good GCSEs. However, we need to do more. Education will rightly be one of the key battlegrounds of the next election and we must ensure that Labour is the progressive voice.
We currently have qualifications that cover all possible understanding, skills and knowledge. In addition to GCSEs and A-levels, vocational qualifications teach specialist skills, BTECS educate about particular sectors or industries, and key skills train students in vital areas such as communication. However, do these qualifications motivate or excite young people? Sometimes, and perhaps often, but that is not good enough. With 63,000 pupils truanting every day last year, and currently 959,000 young Neets, surely change is needed?
At post-16 level, for instance, the main qualification of A-levels is ideal for those wishing to pursue an academic route concentrating on three or four subjects. But what about others? Now the new diploma stimulates pupils by offering practical, hands-on experience combined with academic learning. Alternatively, schools in recent years that have taken up the international baccalaureate can motivate more able students through very detailed academic study of a wide range of subjects.
We need to go further to find the right balance of academic, vocational and work-based qualifications to engage all students. This is even more important now that every young person up to the age of 18 is guaranteed an apprenticeship, training or a place to study by 2015.
Radical reform could have profoundly positive impacts on both higher education and the labour market. Forty-thousand well-qualified school leavers will be denied places at university this year due to a 10% rise in applications. Better qualifications and curriculum could encourage those actually best suited to immediate employment to realise and take it up. Similarly, a shift towards jobs in the growing ‘knowledge economy’, cultural industries and consumer services could be brought about, benefiting the entire economy.
Differences across regions and schools can be an advantage under a system with more choice over wider qualifications. Yorkshire and the Humber has the lowest participation in full-time education but could have the highest proportion of work-based learning instead. Academies, comprehensives and grammar schools would have improved combinations of varying qualifications to suit their different intakes.
Critics argue standards will fall under a new system. In fact, I argue, they will rise. Some point to possible funding and training issues. However, £5bn has just been invested in the Backing Young Britain campaign which aims to help young people take their first steps into the world of work. Qualifications and curriculum reform could be a far more cost effective way to pre-empt such spending. And teachers would hopefully welcome training that might allow them to better engage young people.
Qualifications and curriculum reform is not some magic bullet solution that will transform education overnight. However, combined with decent behaviour management systems, excellent teaching and support staff, and enough resources, the effect could be significant.
We could move towards an education system where no one is so disengaged that they are left behind. A fairer Britain where young people are passionate about learning and can choose the route that is right for them. Labour must continue to push for widening qualifications and radically reform them if we are to develop world-class education.