Made in Sweden: the new Tory education revolution

cuffleyburgers

It is the aim of all Prime Ministers of this country to be the new Thatcher. By smashing the civil service and teachers' unions stranglehold on education Mr Cameron could achieve that. In any case he may be able to achieve a paradigm shift in thinking on this, and wrong-foot labour spectacularly. This is fantastic stuff.

Nick Kaplan

The Voucher system is a fantastic idea as highlighted by your brilliantly researched article, this system has not just worked spectacularly in Sweden but in the US as well, and anything advocated by Friedman is certainly worthy of deep consideration. It is a shame that it has taken the Tories so long to work up the courage to introduce such a proposal, I believe Michael Portillo at one stage proposed it to Thatcher who told him not to be so immature, that the public would never accept such a policy, sadly she was, as usual, probably right. However, as you mention Cameron now has a real chance with this idea, if he makes sure to emphasize Labour’s drastic failing in terms of school funding and the lack of return for that money, he can really push the argument that radical reform is needed. One can only hope all will go well, and then on to vouchers in health care!

CharlieRay15

cuffley is right - this is really dynamite acting against one of the worst special interest groups remaining in Britain. It would destroy the arrant nonsense that one size fits hall for all children at last.

Nigel Bradshaw

Glad Fraser Nelson has followed up my lead (my comment to coffee house some months ago) on Sweden's "free schools". How about another on Sweden's inheritance tax (there isn't any), emphasis on local income tax (relatively few Swedes pay federal income tax to central government, limiting any expansionary tendencies), and charging at all points of entry into its national health system while also allowing Swedes direct access to private doctors for which local authorities have to cover part of the cost.

David Lindsay

No one who doesn't read this and few other right-wing blogs has ever heard of it. Or ever will her of it. This is about getting out the core of the core Tory vote, a perceived need which in itself speaks volumes. When this and the Wisconsin-style welfare scheme are denounced in the Guardian and on the BBC, then I will believe that they really exist at all.

redsq01

The key is for the taxpayer to fund the individual - ie. the customer of eductional services not the supplier

Cogito Ergosum

So 25.000 out of 600,000 thousand children each year leave without the good paperwork that is "proof" of a good education. This is about 4% of the total, roughly corresponding to those who are two standard deviations below average ability.

This is entirely to be expected, and no reorganisation of education will make any serious difference. People are born with a level of ability; education can make the best of that ability but cannot implant it where it is lacking.

What this country does need is schools that cater for defined bands of ability. Midstream schools should not be expected to cater for the very bright or the very dull.

John Fitzgerald

This will only work if there is wholesale reform of the planning system. It is extremely difficult to get planning permisison for change of use. Local authoritis can easily prevent offices or commercial buildings being converted to alternative uses by refusing permission on the grounds of reduction of employment space, and they frequently do.

Roderick Corrie

I understand all this but how does Sweden manage its underclass. What happens to the children of people who will not or cannot engage enough to make any choice?

Marc Silver

If I didn't believe in a God before, I can now. Some kind of divine Providence is intervening in British history so save the Nation from cultural suicide. Now citizens who admire and love the vital historic values of your country will be enabled to build their own schols and provide a firm foundation of creative, altruistic thinking, the wise and dynamic optimism that made Britain great from the beginning. Providing individual family choice in British education will also force those egoistic leftist demigods in Academia and Media Land to knuckle under to the public will. With decision making restored to the tax payers, Britain will regain the respect of the Western world. Thank heaven, Churchhill still lives--he's just been on holiday in Sweden!

Carl Larson

Great article. You forgot to mention that the Swedish social democrats hate the whole thing-but have been unable to block it because the parental support it gets.

David Lindsay

"A system where pupils choose schools, and not vice versa"? Like we've never heard that one before! And as for "a striking convergence of ideology around the case for school liberalisation", all that that means is that no other view ever enters the single shared brain cell of the Westminster Village think-tank set. Who, of course, will dream up anything - ANYTHING - other than the return of the grammar schools, only in the absence of which were they themselves admitted to university.

Buckinghamshire Tory

"I understand all this but how does Sweden manage its underclass." Much like we do it here in Britain, through a welfare state that pays people tosit around doing nothing. The only real difference is what one chose to call it. Here we call it "the welfare state", in Sweden it is called "folkehemmet".

kiffa

I am a school governor at a leafy lane primary school who daily thanks God that we can afford school fees, whilst been driven to apoplexy at how the state system fails children and the injustice of it all. The stalinist centralised control has to be seen to be believed. Teachers are not professionals but aparatchiks concerned with Cover Your A... paper trails, who despite paying lip service to the 'teacher parent partnership' have their backs to the children and parents and focus on the LEA who are their source of income and advancement. The parents know they have no say, so don't even bother. They tell me wistfully that what they really want, is to know through weekly marked spelling and maths tests, how their children are doing. What a terrible wish. It's enough to make you weep. 'Special needs' are pushed - because that is what is getting the funding! The ethos is defensive and obsessed about hurting anyone's feelings (to justify the lack of aspiration). The children are tested endlessly and minutely, to see if they are 'progressing'. But if the starting point is low (see above), to what point? Only to confirm that the teachers are teaching! The information does not appear to be shared with parents in any meaningful way. 'Intelligent' and 'ability' are not words that are used. When my son moved to his prep school, the first thing that happened is that he was assessed - for ability. Which identified that he was working below his potential, and to his great and enormous shock was leaned on to get there. The injustice of this is huge - why do people have to PAY for such a sensible attitude, which grants such advantage in life? When in governor's meetings I speak of global skills shortages and the moral duty of the staff to push their children to their greatest effort possible, the pained looks appear to convey that the outside world and what they do have no links. They seemed unconcerned that 10 and 11 year olds were unable (despite trying very hard) to work out 2/3rds of 90. You see, they had only been working on halving things... We need to get the hands of the left wing ideologues off the throats of our schools. I would like a political party - anyone - who will indicate that they are prepared to do this. The trouble is, the average parent doesn't understand this problem, that it is not money or privilege that makes private schools better, but their independence. And the fact that funding accompanies the child. Those two reforms would change our state system within a term.

Fraser Nelson

So many brilliant points above. David - yes, you're right. A handful of people know about this policy: Cameron has a real challenge popularising it. John: abs right, this system would live or die by proper regulation. LAs use planning to blackball new schools right now and protect their monopoly. Roderick, demand for choice is at its most acute for parents desperate for their kids to get out of the ghetto. The Botkyrka suburb of Stockholm, which is top for immigration and drug abuse, has the 3rd-highest concentration of voucher schools. Demand is highest where there is the highest concentration of kids to teach: the invisible hand steers voucher schools to where they are most needed. The voucher system smashes the most pernicious force at work in state-run education: the soft bigotry of low expectations for those in sink estates. David, I attribute the convergence of opinion to the mound of empirical evidence showing vouchers work.

Neil Rose

I think the point made by John Fitzgerald regarding the planning system being the real problem here. I fear the a future Cameron government would have to address the planning laws for new schools as well as legislation to allow for Vouchers. There is one other point, and that one has to congratulate Labour for raising the amounts of money spent per child that makes such a consideration a real possibility. When public spending on education was derisory vouchers were clearly a non-starter. Only Brown's dirigiste tendencies hold them back from their being applied now.

kiffa

Just one other point that I would like to make: the children that are being comprehensively failed by the state system, are not the very bright ones. They are fine whatever school system they find themselves in. Nor is it the 'special needs', who let's face it are not academic and would never progress to skilled jobs anyway. The children being terribly failed, are the borderline ability, the mid-range. They, the main body of the class, are the ones who precisely need independent school-type pushing, so that they learn persistent, determined work habits, and attain what they are capable albeit only through hard work. Why did the governor know of research that provided evidence that borderline children do better at grammar schools than at comprehensives, but the teachers didn't? Because the governor reads the Torygraph which reported this body of research, and the teachers didn't. However, they disagreed that the borderline children should for their own good futures be worked very hard and encouraged to pass the grammar school test, arguing that 'they might fail' and grammar school would 'stress' them... Why is this (so many children who could make the grade if they were made to work hard, failing) not a national scandal? Parents believe this 'stress' argument readily and support the teachers. You might as well push water uphill. So my third reform would be: schools could teach whatever they want however they want, but all pupils write a national exam (along the lines of Common Entrance)at 11, from which results the secondary school heads freely select their pupils. That would sort out the cant!

Dean Rodrigues

this is without doubt one of the best articles I have read in the last year. The thought of voting Conservative is not something I like to think about, but if they propose this alongside slashing inheritance tax, I may well be convinced. The whole education system needs uprooting, and this method looks perfect.

Mrs Mandy Housby

As Chair of Governors for a Primary School in Wiltshire. I would welcome any change that gives the schools choices about how and where the money they receive can be spent, instead of all these initiatives that are so restrictive, and of course need to be implemented with no extra money. Every child matters comes to mind.Its a great saying, So longs as the children don't require money to matter.

dexey

As a primary school teacher I agree with everything that kiffa, the governor, says. I wonder why, with the power of being the employer, doesn't he or she do something about it. I'd love to not have to teach the literacy hour and the numeracy hour. To go back to exploring the avenues that the children would lead the lesson down but the middle class want to see results. Plenty of testing is the answer.
Kiffa is just another interfering middle class moaner with time on their hands I fear.

kiffa

Dexey blaming everything on the middle classes is a standard left wing cop out which the present government is indulging in big time at the moment. The middle classes have been recognised since the days of Louis XIV as being the backbone of a country, and [their values] should be supported, not vilified. The middle classes have nothing to do with WHO devises and implements the national curriculum; the middle classes tend to vote with their cheque books and remove their darlings to the independent sector. Got that word? INDEPENDENT. The testing that you so hate, is not the fault of the 'middle classes' but is in fact a perversion of Mrs Thatcher's vision (of the very weekly maths and spelling tests that my parents would like), by the left wing twits (change the vowel), the WHO in the previous sentence, to consolidate their ideological control of the state sector. I would love you to teach in anyway you like. As long as the effectiveness of your methods stands up to results in a national examination taken at 11 (from which secondary schools should select their pupils). If they didn't, you would either have to change, or teach less pupils as parents chose a more effective primary school that focussed on the basics. Cuts the cackle perfectly, and concentrates the mind. Works brilliantly for the INDEPENDENT sector, who gain or lose pupils by their results and their reputation. Why can't this eminently sensible solution, be available to all? I would prefer not to pay to have my kids educated properly. 'Every child matters' is a typically meaningless, pointless piece of ideological drivel. So is celebrating Diwali, visiting the local mosque and 'learning about history' by making elizabethan slippers, all of which time wasting social engineering put state children further and further behind their private school counterparts. 'Money and privilege' don't account for the difference. Effective discipline, true attention through small classes and higher teacher pupil ratios and concentrating on the basics do.

Iftikhar Ahmad

Salaam There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools.

John W

I am a huge proponent of this policy and believe if implemented, and coupled with good welfare reform, would transform our society over the course of a decade and usher in a new era in our social history.

But this article is absolutely woeful. It lacks any meaningful insight fails to get to the heart of the policy itself - responsibility. And through it's shoddy arguments actually hands ammunition to those who willfully misconstrue the policy and its potential outcomes.

Fraser, you plunge yet lower in my once high estimations with such persistent second rate writing.

Stephen Barr

As a school governor, this article has filled me with hope, and also a prayer that the Tories don't back away from implementing this. Some of the most powerful and reactionary naysayers in the country (especially the teaching unions and the education authourites) will throw everything they can against this proposition.

Many on the ground though, including the many amazing teachers who struggle every day to educate our children, despite everything put in their way to make that more difficult, along with governing bodies and parents will applaud any Governement that brings this off.

Most importantly, a whole generation of schoolchildren, currently condemned to an unimaginative, undemanding and failed system, will be given the opportunity to be the best they can be.

This is important guys, so please don't fluff it.