A small revolution was announced by the Education Secretary this week, undramatic in itself but one which promises to end Labour’s practice of eroding academic standards in order to make the statistics look good.
A small revolution was announced by the Education Secretary this week, undramatic in itself but one which promises to end Labour’s practice of eroding academic standards in order to make the statistics look good. Michael Gove has declared he will replace the current system of league tables, which judges schools on all GCSE passes, with a system that looks only at the five traditional subjects. The ‘English Baccalaureate’, as it has been dubbed, will require passes in maths, English Literature, a science, a foreign or ancient language and either history, geography, art or music.
This is not the sort of cosmetic gimmick with which we became familiar during the Labour years. It cuts to the heart of the problem in British public services. Ever since league tables were invented, schools have found ways of manipulating the figures to improve their standing. Pupils are encouraged to take a greater number of easier subjects (‘media studies’, ‘food technology’, ‘outdoor pursuits’, etc). The result is more qualifications but less learning. Never have 16-year-olds left English schools with as many good grades as they do now. But who really thinks that their education is better than ever?
In fact, the proportion of pupils who won at least five decent passes in traditional subjects has halved to 15 per cent over the last ten years. Children are leaving school with lots of qualifications that are of little use in the outside world. What began with a lowering of standards at GCSE has extended to A-levels. As vocational subjects are used to propel schools up the league tables, a generation of state-school pupils have been robbed of a good education. Moreover, vocational courses, which once commanded so much respect, have been opened to ridicule.
Labour’s attempt to make vocational GCSEs notionally equivalent to — or in some cases superior to — academic courses shows a failure to distinguish between education and training. At one stage the Department for Education deemed a basic qualification in computer use to be equivalent to four passes in academic GCSEs. This is absurd. It is useful to use a computer, but teaching such skills does not open the mind to the kind of mathematical understanding that allows breakthroughs in computing. Parents understand this distinction, even if ministers do not.
Gove’s reform suggests he understands how the pursuit of Labour’s grade targets has damaged British education. The government has instead committed to a policy of freeing schools from state interference. Gove should avoid replacing Labour targets with Tory ones: as soon as a minister produces any yardstick by which public services will be judged, scams are invented to cheat the system. Gove must also resist any temptation to tinker with the curriculum, or instruct English teachers on how best to do their jobs. The conservative mission is not to control, but to liberate — and the liberation of English education will depend on Gove’s ‘free schools’ project. If schools are allowed to compete with each other, standards will inevitably rise.
This project will take years. But Gove is losing no time in doing what he can for existing schools, and his new, rigorous definition of academic success is a marked and overdue improvement. This week’s reform is a good demonstration of how government should operate. There is nothing which says schools are not free still to offer courses in sports leadership and media studies. But it says to those schools: just don’t expect parents, or anyone else, to be impressed.
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