The undeniable radicalism of the coalition

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter

One of the more surprising aspects of the last few months is the undeniable radicalism at the heart of the Coalition’s mission. Partly, this is driven by a creative tension between Number Ten and Number Eleven: civic conservatism cast against neo-thatcherism. It is also a reflection of the inter-party competition – personalities, political constituencies, and the competition for precious political oxygen.

Strangely, an exception to this radicalism is in education policy where it is, in many ways, an extension of the last government’s approach. A cause for celebration? Unfortunately, not.

First, let’s deal with the trash. Cutting largely successful programmes doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Ending Building Schools for the Future, Education Maintenance Allowances, and funding for School Sport Partnerships – if that goes ahead and there are signs of a U-Turn – is just bananas. A disadvantaged pupil premium is not a bad idea per se but when you shift distribution while capping levels of funding you will always get perverse outcomes and unintended consequences. In this case it is the redistribution of funding from schools in the most deprived areas to those in more advantaged areas.

The spending review made clear that average expenditure per pupil will remain the same in cash terms up until 2015. This means a real terms reduction and even a cash reduction for most once the pupil premium has been factored in.

Unfortunately, the student achievement and education policy debates can’t be separated. Finland which is probably the world’s most successful education system according to the OECD invests heavily in classroom assistants to bring students who are struggling up to speed. Genuinely, no child is left behind. Classroom assistants cost money. The latest learning materials cost money. New school buildings – and learning environment is critical to learning – are extremely expensive too.

There is a deeper question to education policy than cash though. And that is: what world are we educating our children for? Despite its banal and self-evident title “The Importance of Teaching”, the White Paper comes to a very clear answer on the purpose of education. To Michael Gove, education is about knowledge acquisition.

That is why, despite protestations to the contrary, he is, in effect, widening and deepening the national curriculum by changing the way in which schools are measured. If schools are to be primarily evaluated on the GCSE performance of their pupils in English, mathematics, science, a language (living or dead), and a humanity then inevitably that is what they will focus on. Hence the fact that the White Paper is essentially centralising, even for Academies.

If the purpose of education is primarily knowledge acquisition then the White Paper makes sense. In such an education system you want predictable outcomes, designated models of teaching with teacher training geared in that direction, and content tightly defined in a detailed curriculum. That is what Michael Gove has delivered. And before Labour gets on its high horse, that is exactly what Labour pursued in its time in office. The remarkable thing is that the White Paper is continuity rather than change. That is why Labour’s response has been so muted. Fundamentally, give or take free schools, it is in the same educational place. Let’s be honest, that approach did significantly improve educational standards in every conceivable way. So let’s not be naïve here – that’s a good thing.

Yet, the approach is faintly depressing as it’s an enormous missed opportunity. The knowledge economy is defined by the application of knowledge to ‘production.’ In such an economy you want well-trained specialists. Is that the economy of the future? In some respects, yes. But there is more also. As David Cameron touched on in his speech given in Shoreditch a few weeks ago, we are also entering an economy where creativity will be at a premium.

Cameron touched on the ideas of Richard Florida. For Florida, creativity won’t just be something that goes on in somewhere like Shoreditch, it permeates the whole spectrum of employment from the small retail outlet to the global science park. The difference between creativity and knowledge is key. Knowledge is something you acquire. Creativity is something you develop and maintain. Educationalists such as Sir Ken Robinson worry that our education system driven by results and dry curriculum matter actually saps creativity.

This is where both the coalition and Labour before it have fallen short. We are educating kids for the economy of yesterday rather than preparing them for the economy and society of the future.

A creative education system would have an enormous variety of physical, cultural, vocational, and academic experience. It would emphasise relationship building and empathetic engagement. Kids would work in teams and would be encouraged to develop their talents and passion and work across the old subject and maybe even age divides. There would be a specified core of knowledge that would be required but that would be as slim as possible (and yes, it would include spelling, grammar, and punctuation). Those who know how can acquire knowledge. Exams would be used sparingly; the curriculum would look at the skills – social, practical and cognitive – that kids should develop rather than the specified knowledge they should have. They would be assessed on these creative capabilities and teachers would be trained to nurture them.

The White Paper pulls in precisely the opposite direction to this approach. It is deeply ingrained in a knowledge economy and society where high levels of education are required but the nature of that education is very much curriculum, exam, and predictable outcome driven.

In many ways, the coalition’s education policy is the right answer to the wrong question. The right question is the one posed by David Cameron in Shoreditch: how do we nurture a creative economy and society? Michael Gove instead sprinkled traditionalism on New Labour’s knowledge-driven educational approach. The bold political move for Labour would be make the case for an education system that runs with the grain of the future rather than one that simply addresses the weaknesses of the past. It’s ironic that in the one area where some radical thinking was required, the coalition has fallen way short.

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