Photo by “Policy Network” on Flickr. (Creative Commons)
I despair of a real learning conversation about the future of education ever happening in the glare of our appalling media culture. Today Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco was quoted as a critic of “woefully low standards from our school leavers” (Presumably UK wide?). He was scathing about the various distractions to schools and teachers that distracted them from teaching. He wasn’t alone, the Confederation of British Industry waded in with the statistic that 40% of employers agreed. What should we make of this?
First of all the government via a spokesperson asserted that standards have never been higher in secondary schools. The National Union of Teachers ploughed in to the fray with an assertion that he was “plainly wrong”, and somewhat bizarrely went on to state that schools could benefit from the same levels of funding as the private sector; Is it just me or does this add nothing helpful to our joint learning? It was only the analysis of BBC correspondent Kim Catcheside that got me thinking sensibly, and it was buried in a side box of the BBC news site. Many people will never get beyond the main text and in my experience will either side with the schools or with the employers. Will this help us? Not in my view. We need the grown up and thoughtful response that is so hard to make in an emotional world.
Terry Leahy is not wrong. He is our customer in a very real way. Not only does he speak as head of the UK’s largest private employer, but the BBC analysis reminds us that the cohort he is referring to is largely the 16 year old school leaver. From this group an analysis reveals approximately 40% failure to achieve GCSE Maths and English. Mr Leahy is reporting on a group who are not shining in Maths or English. 17% of employers report having to provide remedial learning in literacy and numeracy. He raised concerns about work attitudes and skills as well, but I am unclear on what precisely he referred to. Suffice to say it is reasonable for him to be concerned. We are providing education, we claim to be a reflective profession, are we concerned that the feedback is not what we want? Apparently we want to tell the complainant that he doesn’t understand.
The government predictably only wants to report short term gains under their tenure. Our media and immature political system makes it impossible for a government to say, “Well we’re disappointed to hear these views as we know that overall standards are up, but we’ll get round the table and learn from all our partners how we can address this need”. They can’t say that because no government, and in fact very few leaders in the UK are allowed to learn from experience or error; we simply pillory for all errors to gain political advantage. The real response should be a learning one; we need to involve young people, employers, parents and educators in some urgent learning to continue improving how we support this cohort in gaining essential skills. No blame, just an acknowledgement that this is good learning.
As for the union, I won’t deny unions do a good job, but I despair of their ability to move into the same learning mode, taking on board feedback and having an open exploration of options that might involve the admission that teachers could work in better ways. They are simply not free to do this. (This is why I profoundly believe that unions should deal with employment rights, and teachers should have a professional body that speaks intelligently and reflectively on their behalf). This would help teachers to get more involved in higher level thinking that moves our system forward.
So in my ideal world, the various UK governments would be sitting round a table with teachers, learners, think-tanks, parents and enjoying the Tesco boardroom’s hospitality as they all admit that it’s a tough problem and that they are more likely to create something better together.
I heard a light hearted comment on Twitter that “Tesco would be running schools soon”. Well why not. Perhaps they might bring some new thinking to the table. Presumably they would hire expert teachers to teach (like us!), and avoid having the senior leaders supervising dinner queues and filling in endless low level tedious paperwork. If they could get those senior leaders walking the classrooms and leading pedagogical practice how would that be so bad! I presume they could just give these irritating computers for schools vouchers directly to their own schools!