We must break down the Berlin Wall in schools

12 December 2008

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Michael Gove says that the gulf between the state and independent sectors can only be closed by giving poorer parents the same freedoms as their wealthy counterparts

The government argues that it is taking action to guarantee standards, and points to the creation of its new exams regulator Ofqual as evidence. But Ofqual’s debut performance in the examination arena only led to a deliberate lowering of standards. Earlier this year Ofqual forced one exam board to lower the pass mark for its GCSE science paper to 20 per cent, even though that exam board wished to keep grade boundaries higher. The system set up by the government has only driven the process of devaluation further.

Faced with what’s happening to state-run exams, and conscious that the government is already planning to subvert A-levels further, it is unsurprising that schools are looking elsewhere for harder qualifications. But for those of us concerned with social justice, it’s an increasing cause for concern.

A new wall is being erected in an education system already disfigured by far too many barriers facing the poorest, with those in independent schools pursuing the more rigorous qualifications most valued by universities and employers, and pupils in state schools increasingly having to put up with weaker qualifications which limit their opportunities.

Because I believe discrimination must end, and access to the very best education should be spread much more widely, I want to bust the education establishment’s control of our school and exam system.

I want to give state schools the freedom independent schools currently have to offer more rigorous examinations. I want to give poorer parents the freedom currently available to the wealthy to take their child out of a school they feel is offering the wrong approach and place them in a school responsive to their needs. We ought to do what Tony Blair wanted to do before the Labour party stopped him — and give parents real freedom. We’d empower them, as Sweden did, with the right to choose between a whole host of new state school providers.

Advancing this education revolution matters more now than ever because we can’t afford to run two parallel economies in our education system at a time when our performance in the global economy is suffering. Neither can we afford to have a privileged minority educated rigorously to the highest international standards while others lose out by comparison.

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Demetrius Poliorcetes

December 16th, 2008 3:36pm Report this comment

I applaud your words, Mr Gove. Will you also pledge to take away the superficial and pernicious link that governments seek between league tables and quality? It is a gross and disastrous fallacy that education can be measured only by exam results, something which I believe has been most at the heart of the devaluing of the education system in this country.

Anthony Price

December 18th, 2008 10:58am Report this comment

It's not just schools. I recently retired from an FE college where I taught (or tried to) fro five years.
There was constant interference in the delivery of courses (I even had to accept a plainly unsuitable student on a course because his Social Worker said that 'it would be good for his morale').
Most 'course work' results were inflated by organized cheating - and that's organized by the college, not just the students.

'Management' was a sick joke - failed teachers promoted beyond their abilities, 'wimmin' hired for their 'gender' in spite of manifest incompetence, and so on. To cap it all the Principal of this shambles is weak, incompetent and corrupt.

Complaints to regulators are subject to endless buck passing and there are always reasons why they 'are outside of our terms of reference.

In effect the FE sector are handed millions of pounds of taxpayer money are are accountable to no-one.

The college of which I write had 'Beacon' status - I would not like to see a full blown cess pit of corruption, incompetence and waste.

Surely, something MUST be done. Failing to educate the young is no better than burning books before they are written.

Frances Huggett

March 13th, 2009 9:16pm Report this comment

let's hope tories get in so mg's ideas can be implemented - but it will be at least 10 years before positive effects start to stop the rot. Meanwhile, 2 changes wd bridge the gap ie. immediately(1) restore assisted places scheme (2) allow one school in each of the most deprived metropolitan areas to practice academic selection.
55 years ago I (one of 7 children) was awarded one of the county of Middlesex's 2 assisted places at a highly academic girls public school; now my pension income is only £17K pa because I've shelled out nearly £200k after tax to give my equally intelligent daughter the same rigorous standard of education (moving to a "good" catchment area wasn't an option) - which Tony's Blair's elder children got for free, because one of their parents was a Roman Catholic.
PS my brief experience in a senior position at an FE College matched that of Anthony Price; the security of tenure for incompetent staff made it impossible to aspire to - let alone maintain - any objective standards of education.

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