The worst change in the UK education system in the last 20 years.


So many changes, so few words to address them. Though on the other hand, have there really been any changes. I wish to argue that the worst change in the education system over the last 20 years is that there has been no real change at all.


Things have been introduced into the system over the last 20 years, supposedly 'drastic, sweeping changes' that will 'revolutionise' education and improve it for everyone, raise standards and counter truancy. The National Curriculum came in so that we could be sure that wherever you lived you were getting the same 'quality' of education; Key Stages and testing were designed to monitor progress and make sure all children reach their potential; getting children into school younger and making them take 'school' home with them; standardising the training of teachers and centralising inspection services attempts to create uniformity of experience for children These things have all just been tinkering round the edges of a system that does not respect children as learners. The system has as its basis the idea that children are there to be formed and moulded into the compliant citizens and workers and enthusiastic consumers.
Moves in the 60's to make our education system more child centred never truly took off, and the experiment petered out through lack of commitment and misunderstanding of the nature of child led learning. (As G.K. Chesterton might have put it; it is not that it has been tried and failed - rather it has been found difficult and left untried.) Professionals use this 'failure' as an argument for the continuation of a system that does not, for many children, even achieve it's superficial aims of literacy and numeracy. A system that professes to know all about the nature of how children learn but appears not to act on this knowledge; research is done and evidence presented, but the relevant government department continually chooses to follow its own agenda for the young people of this country and ignore advice or evidence that contradicts them.


During 18 years of Conservative government differences of opinion were ridden roughshod over, people who disagreed were simply disregarded. Now what we have is far more subtle and dangerous. The present government's policy of 'social inclusion' aims to simply bring everyone into their fold, with the same result that there will be no publicly expressed differences of opinion. This policy filters down through all areas of society, including the education system. They saw that to their delight the education system already did what they were after; it produced people who knew the same thing, held the same attitudes and were quite comfortable with being told what to think. If it is done for long enough, and hard enough, the ability to think that there are other ways of thinking will disappear. People will no longer be able to imagine that learning could be about something real, rather than just the enforced absorption of a government dictated view of how society should be. So they just do MORE of what was already being done; more control of curriculum; earlier entry into formal schooling (catch them young); more homework, inflicted on younger and younger children (infringing on children's precious free time); more uniforms (that give the outward appearance of conformity to go with the conformity of thought); more government dictats about method as well as content; more assessment and inspections; just more.
There have been no REAL alterations to the way the education system operates. The worst change is the complete lack of change. Please, please, give us some change.

Printed in Education Now Issue 25.