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Campaign for Change 5: Education - by James Evans
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What will really learn 'em? James Evans presents an alternative to the grammar school debate.
Proposals: 1. Give teachers the power to hold students back a year if they are not satisfied with their progress. 2. Integrate career paths into secondary education without prejudice. Education is a hot political topic. Press hounds are busily hamstringing senior Conservatives who are distracted by their inter-necine squabble over grammar schools. Education secretary and potential Prescott replacement Alan Johnson is fraying public sector egos by talking about bussing public school teachers into state schools to drive up results. Academic policy, fittingly, attracts a wide range of theories and incessant argument about their merits. To solve problems, we need to make things simple; what differentiates good schools from bad is the learning environment. The key factors in creating the learning environment are human variables – students, teachers and parents. Problems arise currently in many schools because the balance of responsibility and authority between these parties is skewed. Teachers are burdened with most of the expectations and responsibility for teaching. But their authority over pupils is much more limited than the parents’ even though they may have to manage as many as thirty children at once. To bolster their authority without tackling the legal quagmire of child protection legislation, teachers could be given the power to hold weak and disruptive pupils back a year: student peer pressure could thus be channelled towards, rather than against, academic progress; youngsters’ progress would hinge upon acquiring key skills and they would be unable to mark time on an academic conveyor belt. The other key issue in education is destination. University is not a destination; adult jobs and adult responsibilities are. Employment outcomes need to dovetail with school activity. Secondary school leavers could phase into their jobs over their final year; the university-bound should be engaging with graduate job opportunities from the age of 18. Choices should be given equal status; all jobs are socially important. Comment on this article by going to our have you say section 05/05/07 |
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