Education

Fixing the education system in Britain is absolutely crucial to promoting social mobility, the principal domestic social policy aim of the coalition. So Michael Gove’s announcement on the Andrew Marr show this morning that the government plans to introduce an English baccalaureate is to be welcomed. The baccalaureate programme will end at 16, still allowing specialisation at A-Level—one of the things that allows undergraduate education in this country to be far more intellectually rigorous than in the States, and will require pupils to do English, maths, science, a foreign or ancient language and a humanity. This should help stop the drift to softer subjects at GCSE and place pressure on

Tomorrow’s Guardian front page says Michael Gove dealt fresh blow as only 20 ‘free schools’ approved. But this is actually not a bad rate of progress. The 20 refers only to the new schools that will open in September 2011, more will open in 2012 and 2013 and so on. One would expect the numbers to increase as momentum behind the programme builds. As soon as parents see what these schools can do, there’ll be greater demand for them. Ed Balls is out tonight with a typically pugnacious statement claiming that this proves that parents don’t want free schools. But it is worth remembering that Tony Blair, a man who

Britain’s state school system is a national disgrace. Not because we don’t have excellent schools: we do. But only for those who can afford to move to the good catchment areas. The comprehensive system gives the best service to the rich, and the worst to the poor. It is a system which harbours bad teachers – only 18 have been struck off for incompetence in 40 years. Compare this to the USA where 252 bad teachers were sacked in one day last week. Our world-class private schools show that England can be a world leader in education. But we have one of the biggest gaps in the world between attainment

Today’s A-level results once again see the pass rate continuing to rise, in this instance for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, up from 97.5% in 2009. While not wishing to detract from the efforts of students and teachers, unfortunately such a rise has become all too expected, to the point where there would almost have to be a public inquiry if it were not to happen. Nor should the introduction of the A* at A-Level warrant particular attention, except perhaps to say that it serves as a symbol of how far we have allowed grade inflation to go.    

University funding is beginning to dominate op-ed pages. Yesterday, Matthew d’Ancona put the case for a graduate tax from the conservative perspective; and to which Douglas Carswell has responded. Today, Professor Alison Wolf, a specialist in Public Sector Management at KCL, makes the point that any debate about higher education funding is prejudiced because Britain’s politicians and policy makers are predominantly Oxbridge educated, and the structure of Oxbridge undergraduate degrees is radically different from anywhere else. Writing in the Times (£), she asserts: ‘I’ve sat in many meetings, in Whitehall and Westminster, where people have talked up credit systems (a modular system of assessment) without the faintest idea that we

This is the second of our posts with Reform looking ahead to the Spending Review. The first, on health, can be found here. What is the budget? Education is the biggest area of government spending after welfare and health, totalling £89 billion in 2010-11. This budget increased by 64 percent in real terms between 1999-00 and 2010-11. Total, per-pupil school spending doubled in real terms over the same period. Where does the money go? Expenditure on schools was £46 billion last year. The vast bulk of school spending goes on people: the average school spends 78 percent of its budget on staff. The byzantine arrangements for school funding mean that

The contours of an agreement on how to pay for university education are clearer today after Rachel Sylvester’s interview with David Willetts. Up-front fees look to be on the way out.  Willetts tells Sylvester, ‘It’s very important that it’s signaled very clearly that the money that is paid back comes out of your earnings once you have graduated and are in work.’ It also seems that different courses at different institutions will have different prices. Willetts proclaims that he wants something that ‘links you to your university and the course you did at that university.’   So far, this looks like simply collecting variable fees through the tax system. But the

One of the issues on the horizon that has the most potential to cause problems for the coalition is how to fund higher education. The Liberal Democrats are opposed to fees and the Tory MPs and press loathe the idea of a straight graduate tax. As Ben Brogan notes in his Telegraph column today, Vince Cable and David Willetts, the two ministers charged with working this out, are having a very civilised discussion about it. Oddly enough, it is — as I say in the magazine this week — the blue on blue rows in government that are most vicious. My understanding is that the compromise the coalition will come