Education is arguably the most important policy area in our society simply because it affects every aspect of life. If a population is better educated things automatically improve, be it economically, socially, culturally, even environmentally.
But it’s also an area vulnerable to the whims of political ideology which was demonstrated most recently by the Conservative’s spokeswoman for education in Wales, Angela Burns, calling for a return to grammar schools and selective schooling.
The most disappointing aspect of this call back to outdated educational elitism is that it’s also the easiest, and laziest, solution to a very important point. It amounts to no more than handpicking the ones who test well – in one exam, once in their life – and leave the others behind.
At a time when an entire generation of young people is staring down the barrel of a hopeless future, this is when decisions matter the most. And old ideas just won’t do.
The harder road, and the one that needs to be taken, is to show every pupil why their education matters, and make them work harder to find their potential whether it be academically or vocationally.
This boils down to changing attitudes.
Labour laid the platform for this change to take place and showed what can happen when education, not ideology, comes first.
With its academies programme it took substandard schools away from local authorities that had failed to improve the attainment of its pupils while trusting those who were performing well to continue to do so.
This targeted approach encouraged a new age of aspiration among young people from poorer backgrounds and helped change attitudes with evidence showing them to improve the potential of pupils by broadening their ideas and introducing them to new subjects.
Politicians – and political ideas – can be beneficial to schools when they give them what they need to be able to manage themselves.
Providing 35,000 more teachers in 10 years, creating more than 1,000 new schools and refurbishing crumbling ones, increasing teachers’ pay to attract better candidates, reducing the pupil-to-teacher ratio to give more students better access to personal learning – these are all accomplishments of a Labour government that identified that the best way to change attitudes in education was by giving schools what they needed to change themselves.
What happened was a rapid increase in standards, higher test scores and more pupils from middle- and working-class backgrounds going on to university and training than ever before – all led by schools and teachers given the help they needed.
This is in stark contrast to Michael Gove’s ideological approach to education which displays a disdain for successful locally controlled schools and shows the damage that can be done when ideology takes the place of evidence-based policies.
A manipulation of Labour’s academies programme, taking even successful schools out of the hands of local control, and the diversion of public money away from the schools that need it towards free schools, has seen an almost instant drop in standards and morale, and confusion among teachers and despair in the very people education is supposed to serve.
It’s the responsibility of schools to inspire pupils, to change attitudes and to improve attainment and it’s the job of politicians to help them do that – not stand in the way.
By calling for a policy in which the state decides upon the academic future of a 14-year-old, Angela Burns has highlighted the failings of the Tory education agenda.
Their outdated ideas offer nothing in the way of help for young people at a time when they need it most.
If politics is to be good for pupils it should help create the environment in which schools can expose them to as much learning as possible. Whether they decide upon the academic route or vocational route must be left up to them no matter what their background. And it should be schools, not politicians, that lead the way.
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Michael Davies is a writer and a member of Progress. He tweets @mjdavies1
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Is Gove from another planet or just plain ignorant? Perhaps neither! Is his agenda to destroy Public Sector education to reinforce his bigoted view that “Public is bad but Private is good”?
I’m afraid that many in Labour also believe this with its record of Privatisations, outsourcing, etc. Tories are softening up The NHS, education and the Public Sector to make it easier to
privatise. Labour needs to vehemently and solidly support the Public Sector and it should be building a case of strong evidence that highlights the competence and brilliance of some Public Sector institutions compared with the failures, inefficiency, incompetence, fraud and scams many private sector companies are guilty of. Of course, one can always find examples to support or reject these views.
Although Michael Davies may positively point to the money poured into education to compensate for the neglect of Public Sector education by the Tories over many years, the New Labour Government did not truly understand the real problems in education. When New Labour got into office in 1997 teachers and NHS workers breathed deep sighs of relief after the years of
being kicked by Tories. It was short lived when the kicking continued with constant change by
career politicians trying to make a name for themselves (e.g. league tables, competition between institutions) It is little wonder the Public Sector is utterly demoralised. I’m afraid that politicians were in charge of departments of which they did have not hands-on experience. The one Education Secretary of State who had potential to “do good” (an ex-teacher) was driven out by the Press. Even today, one shadow minister, potentially in charge of Health, has not even worked in the Public Sector, let alone the NHS!
Teaching unions represent teachers at the chalk face and best placed to REALLY know what is needed. However, a former Secretary of State for Education admitted to me some time ago that he was not talking to the NUT, the biggest teaching union, because they would not sign a document detrimental to its members! How ignorant and arrogant was that?! At a fringe I attended some years ago, Margaret Hodge, when FE minister, called the NAFHE national secretary’s view on student fees as “bollocks.”
We (Labour) need shadow ministers who have had hands-on experience of the departments they represent. Advisors and researchers in “think tanks,” etc. need also to meet the same criterion – not just “bag carriers” waiting for the “Big One.” It is little wonder that the Public has little confidence or respect for our “bright” career politicians – in ALL parties. How
many younger MPs come from science and engineering backgrounds?
Labour’s education policy needs to be carefully thought out by people who have, for example, had to deal with disruptive pupils and parents, heavy workloads, difficult employers, etc. Control Freak management, short term contracts, attacks on working conditions (often by Academies), etc. All this grew under Tory and Labour governments creating the poor morale many teachers experience. As a retired FE teacher with 26 years’ experience (from the grassroots to Senior Lecturer in Teacher Training) my views ought to have weight but, as usual, I will be dismissed as being a “grumpy old b……d”!
Old Grassroots Geezer
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A good article and yet again Labour has failed to blow its own trumpet. The expansion of sixth form numbers , modular AS/A Levels and university numbers allowed more and more people the chance of social mobility over the last 12 years or so.
So it was with disappointment that Labour’s team missed the opportunity to ‘get one on the Tories’ a week or so ago when many , many thousands of students receiving their results will be the* first cohort * for well over 12 years or more not to be able to resist units this January as Gove stopped it.
Both working class and middle class parents are angry that their students will have to wait nearly a year before improving their chances. Sixth former’s and their teachers are exasperated. Its a blow because it limits opportunities to improve grades – AS Maths is a brilliant example of where kids improve marks second time around- as students will be over burdened next summer with many units. Who misses out the most? Kids who were ill, had family issues, had inexperienced teachers, had higher teacher turnover ( more common in inner city schools), chose the wrong subjects and so on. Our society, our economy needs more educated people not less. Incidentally the independent sector and the leading universities are lobbying behind the scenes trying to stop Gove’s abolition of AS and crazy sixth form reforms – but you will not read that in the Tory media. Labour again have been to meek and mild on these crazy changes.