British Educational Priorities

Labour came to power in 1997 promising three priorities, education, education and education. We all remember the cheers and the adulation heaped on a young, hopeful Tony Blair - the Prime Minister in waiting. Now, 10 year on, the reality is rather different.

Primary school teacher have to work, mark and create lesson plan until 10pm at night just to keep up with the bureaucracy. The children they teach are drilled to pass SATs and have no idea of playing (= socialising), the world around them (= socialising) or general social values.

Seconary schools are graded according to league tables. If their results drop they can be put on special measures. Obviously, they will do everything they can to maximise their results. If this means that some are neglected, well so be it. If some get burned out and end up hating education that's OK. If the pressure on these teenagers encourages drink, drugs or results in anti-social behaviour then that is the price we pay for league table success.

Further education used to be the safety net. We are now heading towards a situation where anyone over 18 will find it very difficult to get on a course because the government will not fund them any more. Instead, disaffected 16 to 18 year-olds will be forced to take courses they don't want and don't value. Imagine that you want to study, you want to improve yourself but either have to pay £3,000 a year for the privilege and then put up with unmotivated classmates who just disrupt you.

Tertary education was always about improving the mind and making students independent thinkers. There is now a growing trend towards targets and monitoring. Why? Yes, there were lazy teachers and lecturers - we all met them. However, the problem lay in the difficulty of removing these parasites. Their behaviour would not have been tolerated in industry, why should it be acceptable in education?

It is no good just pointing out problems. Being a whinging, whinning "I told you so" is not constructive. So what can realistically be done to improve the situation?

Primary education should be test free (and that includes the costly and time consuming OFSTED inspections). A real national curriculum would help. For example, a set of graded reading material, maths material, science work, general knowledge extension exercises, etc. Each teacher should then report on exactly which material each pupil has completed. This can then be collated to monitor national, local and school levels - all without imposing extra burdens on teachers.

Secondary school should be much more flexible. Imagine you want to teach a class to play the piano. Would you expect everyone to learn at the same pace? Of course not! Some will be much more musical than others. Why should they all do the same exercises at the same time. A good slice of the class will be bored, another section baffled and only a minority will be engaged in playing the piano. Why should it be any different in French or maths? Why shouldn't pupils be allowed to take GCSEs earlier than 16 (yes, I know a few do, but I am talking about the majority). Imagine that every pupil had to take a GCSE in their favourite subject in year 9. They would get the experience of revising for a real exam, sitting it under formal conditions and then waiting for the result to pop through the letter box. All this with other chances to either improve the grade or move on to a higher level.

Why should disaffected 13 year-olds disrupt the education of the affected? Let those who can prove that they have a proper job leave school - but then make it easy for them to return to education later. Surely the purpose of education is to maximise the benefit to society. People taking education when they want to do it will be far more productive than force feeding. That has to be good for Britain.

Further education could then play a valuable role in up-skilling society to the benefit of all. Certainly, the 3Rs are important, but coersion is not the answer. Give people the realisation that they have a stake in their future rather than expecting "them" to sort every problem will aid both social and economic well-being. A motivated work-force produces more - a motivated student body will learn more.

This will then give universities the opportunity to engender those skills required for all advancement - thinking. The value of degrees (except for subjects such as medicine or architecture) is not the product but the process. Teach someone to learn, motivate them and we all benefit. This is the future.

This may sound fine, but what about about cost? Do we have to add a penny to income tax? Well, no.

This article is not arguing for an increase in public spending, but a realignment, a move away from control in favour of monitoring. Push the money spent on OFSTED and ALI into educating people. Push teacher time from form-filling to teaching. This is the way forward - not back to the control and power trips of 19th century Mr. Beadles.