It’s hard to foresee a time when schools become irrelevant

(Alan Smithers, The Independent, January 7, 1999)

The first column of the last year of the millennium is a good time for reflecting back and looking forwards. As the Queen’s Speech acknowledged, in education the immediate challenge facing the Government is to ensure that there are sufficient high-quality teachers. November's Green Paper shows that, nudged by the Treasury’s “something for something” policy, it is putting its faith, for the time being, in performance-related pay.

But there are influential voices claiming that, soon, teaching will have been so transformed by information and communications technology that only a small specialist cadre of teachers will be required, capable of being recruited without difficulty from the increasing pool of graduates. In an extreme form, the argument is that schools themselves will become irrelevant.

It is remarkable, however, how little schools have changed since Roman times, in spite of the invention of the printing press, radio, television and the computer.

There are some who would suggest that this betrays a woeful lack of vision. But for me it underlines the enduring purpose of schools - to help the young to participate fully in their society and make sense of three-score-and-ten years on a lump of rock. Experience has shown that this is best achieved through actively coming together in the presence of someone who is able to pass on understanding to others.

It is likely, therefore, that there will be a continuing need in the new millennium to attract large numbers of good graduates to become teachers, people who must also be capable of using the latest technology to best advantage. There is no doubt that the many changes imposed on education in the last decade have failed to make this task any easier.

Not so long ago, the teacher-training institutions were able to attract nearly 70,000 applicants for some 50,000 places; nowadays there is a struggle to fill 30,000 places. In part, the previous popularity of the profession was because teacher training was seen as an alternative form of higher education, but it was also because teaching was regarded as a vocation. People were drawn to it by a sense of public service and, once qualified, they were free to teach what they wished, how they wished.

But over the years, in some cases, liberty lapsed into indulgence. Without any national checks of pupil performance until the examinations at the end of compulsory schooling, some wildly over-optimistic views of children’s learning sprang up. Effort and practice came to be seen as unnecessary, indeed inimical, to learning, and it was felt that handling words and numbers would come naturally in the mere presence of books and other resources.

Faced with this nonsense, the Thatcher government embarked on reform. It put in place four main planks, a basic curriculum, setting down what no child should miss out on; national tests to check what the children were learning; inspections to see how the schools were doing; and a funding mechanism, which allowed decisions about spending to be taken as close to the classroom as possible.

New Labour has adopted these reforms as its own, and since coming to power has concentrated on providing the pressure and support to give them effect. This has often taken the form of setting targets, publishing and commenting on outcomes, and financially rewarding success.

However necessary some shift from trust to accountability might have been, it has transformed the teacher's role. Teachers are now subject to a new managerialism, in which they are continually having to account for themselves in ways which they feel do not always capture the true purposes of education.

In the past, many were drawn to teaching by the sense of being able to spend their lives in a worthwhile way, helping others. The salary may not have been very good, and the status may have been ambivalent, but they felt that they were able to take the important decisions for themselves.

Much of that autonomy has been taken away, without any compensatory attractions. In fact, berating teachers was to become one of the main ways of stabilising the system, so that it would accept reform.

This has left the Government with the urgent problem of coming up with a balance of potential satisfactions, which will make teaching an attractive profession in the new millennium. The Green Paper does not tackle this fundamental issue, and its version of performance-related pay will further undermine autonomy and security.

Paradoxically, the Government could achieve more by attempting less. It should have the courage to stand back and allow the new General Teaching Council to become a genuinely self-regulatory body. This would establish teaching as a true profession, alongside medicine and law.

But, above all, now that a necessary correction has been made, it should consider how the pendulum can be moved back more towards trusting teachers. With the guarantees of the national curriculum, tests and inspections, the Government should devise an equitable way of funding schools, and let them get on with it.

ASSIGNMENTS:

I. Language

1. Explain in English and then translate the following words and expressions into Russian:

A cadre, a woeful lack of vision, three-score-and-ten years, a basic curriculum, national tests, a shift from trust to accountability.

2. Translate the following expressions into Russian:

To face a challenge, to put one’s faith in, performance-related pay, pool of graduates, enduring purpose, to pass sth on to sb, teacher-training institutions, to attract X applicants for Y places, higher education, vocation, sense of public service, to lapse into sth, effort, practice, inimical, compulsory schooling, to handle words and numbers, to come naturally, to embark on reform, to berate teachers, to stand back, a self-regulatory body, to devise an equitable way of funding schools, to let sb get on with it.

3. Explain what these are:

The Queen’s Speech, the Green Paper, the Treasury.

II. Contents

When carrying out the following assignments, please make use of the previously discussed words and expressions:

1. Select all arguments used to demonstrate that schools may become irrelevant and even unnecessary. Express your opinion as to whether the point is proved.

2. Sum up the recent changes and developments in the British system of education. Are there any similarities with the situation in Russian? Please rely on your personal experience when answering this question.

3. What is your opinion of Alan Smithers’ thesis?

4. What future do you see in store for education in the world?

ADDITIONAL TEXTS

OFSTED – AN OFFER WE CAN’T REFUSE

(David Tytler, The Guardian, September 15, 1992)

Regular inspections and open, honest and jargon-free reports are offered to parents by the brave new world of Ofsted. In the same way as we are told that Oftel and Ofgas have brought improved services and reduced bills, so Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, will improve the lot of schools, parents and pupils alike. Or will it?

Stewart Sutherland, vice-chancellor of London University, the new head of Ofsted and Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is confident the new system will work, but he is the first to admit there is much to be decided before the first inspections of secondary schools next autumn.

Former education secretary Kenneth Clarke envisaged that schools would pick their own inspection teams, an aberration suitably overruled by the House of Lords. What still has to be decided is just how Prof Sutherland and his team will choose instead. Vague promises of quality control have to be transformed into guarantees.

The first schools to be inspected will be chosen by the professor on advice from the remaining HMI and the education department. They are likely to be schools at risk. He will then decide which teams should carry out the work. The legislation insists there should be at least two tenders but does not set a maximum.

Then there is the question of publication of the reports. All HMI reports on schools, colleges and specific courses have been published since 1983 with copies being sent to the newspapers. There is no such requirement on Ofsted, who are bound to ensure only that a copy of the full reporl is sent to Prof Sutherland, the chairman of governors and either the local authority or the Department for Education depending on whether the school is grant-maintained or still under local authority control. Summaries have to be sent to all parents and a full copy made available which could either be at the school or in the local library.

The question of publication is vexed. Take the example of one southern primary school that received a report from the local authority inspectors who praised the efforts of the head-teacher and staff in raising standards. It came after a difficult period at the school following unfavourable reports and the governors were both surprised and pleased at the apparent sudden improvement.

In checking with the inspectors, however, the chairman of governors discovered all was not as it seemed. The school’s performance was still giving cause for concern but as the report would be published and available to all parents any overly critical remarks would be undoubtedly damaging. Now that school budgets depend largely on pupil numbers this could pose a serious long-term threat to the school if sufficient parents decide either to withdraw their children or not send them there in the first place.

The solution for the governors was to invite the inspectors to report verbally to them and answer questions openly and honestly. An entirely different picture of the school emerged and together the head, governors and staff were able to address the problems.

As a journalist I must be in favour of open government: as a chairman of governors I must be in favour of honest government which is not quite the same. General publication will inevitably lead to coded or bland reports: the alternative leads to unfair disadvantaging of the school. Governors must be made aware of the true state of their schools so they can take the appropriate action.

One compromise is to publish a report economical with the truth, providing there is a confidential covering note to the head and governors.

Professor Sutherland says the four-yearly reports on the 25,000 state schools in England and Wales will give a clear view of the quality of education provided, educational standards achieved, financial management and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Nobody can argue with the aims as few could claim the present mishmash of small national inspectorate and often ill-directed local teams has provided the clear guidance that schools require and pupils and parents are entitled to expect. But doubts linger whether the new system will be any better.

For it to work satisfactorily Prof Sutherland must prove he can insure the quality of the 6,000 or so inspectors with only a handful of HMI left to help him. Schools, their pupils and parents have had enough of being treated as guinea pigs. Proof of quality control will be needed before the first teams are appointed.

The dangers of acting too late can be seen in the confusion, frustration and resentment caused by the government’s rethink on GCSE and the curriculum. Schools, pupils and parents have a right to expect that similar chaos will not dog the new inspectors.