The right education, not just more education

I wouldn’t normally just give you excerpts from someone else’s article, but today I make an exception. Partly because it was in the New York Times, partly because it was by Thomas L Friedman (‘The World is Flat’ man) and partly because it is right (and supports Edge’s views!!) It is entitled ‘The New Untouchables’:

"In our subprime era, we thought we could have the American dream — a house and yard — with nothing down. This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education, productivity and savings, but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia.

"A year ago, it all exploded. Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future.

"...that is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.

"Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.”

Aspire, Inspire - 'The Future’s in Your Hands'

I have two highlights from this week:

Firstly I was privileged to attend and give out some awards at an extraordinarily professional, moving and inspiring Celebration of Achievement for all schools and those in education across Barnsley on Thursday – a recognition of talent in all its forms. The finale was a quite brilliant performance of a student-composed song, ‘The Future’s In Your Hands’, by a special Celebration Brand and choir of 200+ young people of all ages, to a backdrop of pictures of children and choirs across the borough.

As I have blogged before, Barnsley has a fabulous long-term vision for education but it is so tough to turn around decades of lack of ambition, under-achievement and shortage of jobs. The event convinced me of the criticality of sophisticated marketing and communications as well as education policy – and this was a great start.

Secondly, having got back from Barnsley just before midnight, I switched on the TV to find singer Paloma Faith sparking a debate on BBC1's This Week with Andrew Neil, Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo. She was very eloquently advocating a transformation of education, by putting much greater emphasis on emotional intelligence and ensuring there were more practical and vocational opportunities for teenagers. Thanks Paloma! We'll be in touch...

At this rate Edge will soon be able to change tack from “this is why we need more practical and vocational education” to “this is how you do it…and here are all the brilliant examples already taking place”.

Open season on education

Everyone seems to have been joining in the knocking of education over the past couple of weeks. Is this really fair? What is going on?
Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy attacked “woefully low” standards in Britain’s education system, blaming government for a surplus of quangos and guideline overkill. Biff!

Then the Cambridge Primary Review, led by Professor Robin Alexander, was published and concluded that the “apparatus of targets, testing, performance tables, national strategies and inspection is believed to distort children’s primary schooling for questionable returns.” It also noted: “the questionable evidence on which some key educational policies have been based; the disenfranchising of local voice; the rise of unelected and unaccountable groups taking key decisions behind closed doors; the ‘empty rituals’ of consultation; the authoritarian mindset; and the use of myth and derision to underwrite exaggerated accounts of progress and discredit alternative views.” Thwack!

And finally, to top it all, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said: “We have in the past few decades created an extraordinarily anxious and in many ways oppressive climate in education at every level in the search for proper accountability. This search is laudable in itself, but its outworkings have been unhappy: an inspection regime that is experienced by many teachers as undermining, not supportive, an obsession with testing children from the earliest stages, and in general an atmosphere in most institutions of frantic concern to comply with a multitude of directives ...We are in danger of reintroducing by the back door the damaging categorising of children at an early age as successes and failures.” Krunch!

Of course many of us would agree with the sentiments about assessment as well as central interference and control. But I believe there is more to it.

Charles Handy used to talk about the s-curve and how if you didn’t want to go backwards you needed to set off on a new cycle of development before you reached the point of diminishing returns on the current one. Well I believe the current approach to education has already plateaued, and we have missed the point where we should have set off on a new track. And so with diminishing educational returns the debate will get more heated and frothier. And this will continue until we gain consensus on a new approach – which of course must be ‘many talents, many paths to success’ ... and all the consequent implications for curriculum, and pedagogy, and facilities, and employer engagement, and careers advice, and student voice. Sadly I do not see any political party yet grasping the bigger picture.

Gove and Willetts - greyhounds straining at the leash

As mention in last week’s blog, it was indeed like greyhounds in the slips...

On Monday Lord Baker, Michael Gove and David Willetts addressed a packed hall including David Cameron and George Osborne. They all spoke about the desperate need for greater hands-on practical and vocational education in the UK. Edge research was cited in announcements which included the following (all of which Edge has provided specific advice on over the past few months):

New technical schools in each of the 12 biggest cities in England (these are the University Technical Colleges which, with Edge's close involvement, are being developed by Kenneth Baker and his Baker-Dearing Educational Trust).

Lifting the cap on Young Apprentices, providing 100,000 additional apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships each year by offering SMEs incentives to take on apprentices.

Freeing up FE colleges to be able to provide more training places for young people who have been on Job Seekers' Allowance.

On Tuesday, Lord Freud said spoke about Working Rite – one of Edge’s investments from the Learning Launchpad in partnership with the Young Foundation, saying; "Inspired by the successful Working Rite model, we will match up 100,000 young people with sole traders for a 6 month’s work experience."

We held our final fringe debate Tuesday evening and it was a corker with terrific panellists (Baroness Verma, Anastasia de Waal from Civitas, and Aaron Porter from NUS) and an excellent audience. I was very impressed with Sandip Verma, who is the Opposition Spokesperson for Education and Skills and Health. As a business woman and a parent, she comes from a different background to some of the other politicians and has a clear and grounded understanding of the issues. Given that she has a foot in both the Gove and Willetts teams, I think she has very important role to play.

We were expecting the Balls challenge on the positioning of vocational qualifications and Diplomas within school performance league tables to be taken up by Gove on the Wednesday - but nothing was said. I like to think it is because the Conservatives recognise that more thought is needed here. After all, the University Technical Colleges they trumpeted will be providing both standard GCSEs as well as Young Apprenticeships, Diplomas and other vocational qualifications as appropriate.

All in all a good conference season from an Edge point of view - but I'm not sorry it has ended!

Powerful stuff at conference

I don't know why it always surprises me but it does. Even though it has happened during more than a few leaders' speeches at party conferences over the years, I forget just how powerful good oratory still is - despite our increasingly digital world. It inspires, it stiffens the sinews - 'once more unto the breach', close the wall with Labour dead, etc. Of course for those who are not present it has little impact in this world of selective sound-bites. Somewhere in Gordon's speech was:

"And the new model for education in the 21st century –the biggest step we can take into the future - is to unlock the talents of all young people. ... Our guarantee to all young people is that with millions of new opportunities from apprenticeships to internships to a new class of modern technicians, we will discover, coach, develop and showcase the wealth of aspiration and talent that exists in Britain."

That could have been Edge talking! And Ed followed on:

“But when he (Michael Gove) said we should exclude all vocational qualifications and Diplomas from league table comparisons of school performance, you start to get the real measure of his plans. Time after time I've visited schools where heads have proudly shown me design or construction, sport or dance lessons and told me those subjects have inspired young people to get good grades, including in maths and English too. But Michael Gove says that these are soft subjects which should not count. What schools does he visit? How can he say all the pupils in our state schools learning these vocational subjects are second class? Instead of ending the damaging old divide between first class academic qualifications for some and vocational learning for the rest, he wants turn to back the clock and entrench that divide.”

I couldn't be more pleased. At last it looks as if we may be getting a public debate on education at the highest level that doesn't duck the importance of 'many paths to success'. Come on Dave, come on Michael, it's your turn, show them whose boss: "I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Practical and Vocational Learning!’”