We need to develop a principled education policy that sets us out from the Coalition

There has been a drift in some recent postings to suggest that one way to find clear water between the Labour Party and the Coalition is to refocus on what Labour is actually about rather than reacting on the hoof, knocking out policy at dinner parties or trying to stop UKIP getting more votes. Taking that on board, education might be a good place to start because the drivers have been wrong for some time: academies intended to knock local councils; free schools designed to support privatisation; harder examinations to make the ministers look tough and so on. In opposition, the Labour Party has tended to react to the issues while carrying the weight of its own past decisions – without thinking about reconfiguring the agenda.

That is a missed opportunity because the world has changed. Knowing stuff is not the point now and the personal accumulation of facts and knowledge is not the key to being smart. Focusing education on some kind of career objective is also a mistake in a world where the job market is shifting so rapidly. Meanwhile, higher education is a mess and working through A-levels and university to have lifelong debts (unless you go to work in the city or the law) will not do anybody any good. In other words, there is space for innovation.

The curriculum might be a good place to start. Trying to go back to the grammar school subjects of the 1950s might be popular with Conservative voting pensioners but doesn’t win many points where parents are concerned. They know that children today have to be taught to be discerning, to evaluate what they see and hear, to know how to find the information they need, and then check it out and apply it. They need to be able to do this constantly and to reshape the technologies that help them develop. A fixed list of GCSE examination subjects, based largely on the recall of facts and tested only by terminal examination, where around half of the population will not do well enough to think they have been successful might well be the very worst way to prepare young people and equip the workforce we need in the future. There are good reasons to think about doing things differently and in a principled way.

Making sure that Labour gets the teacher vote is another principled priority. Teachers have been beaten down by a series of increasingly controlling regimes so giving them just a bit of space and more support will be popular. However, it will also be good educationally. OFSTED and a constraining curriculum have combined to limit the imagination and application of teachers and not many of them are going to want to vote LibDem again! Lifting the dead hand of OFSTED inspection, building career pathways and providing professional support doesn’t involve massive costs but it will get them back onside. The Daily Mail won’t like it and neither will their readers but the parents of school-age children appreciate what teachers do and recognise their skills.

Parents are another group whose support is important. The Coalition has shot itself in the foot by expanding nursery education but tying it to payment by results and a slavish commitment to old-fashioned ways of developing literacy and numeracy. The parents of preschool children like constructive play and, better still, they like learning through play. It’s another open door and it will get votes without sacrificing principles.

Then, there are some emerging holes in Coalition policy which are beginning to show. The Trojan Horse issue in Birmingham showed what can happen when you cut out democratic accountability. A small pressure group got hold of an Academy trust and did some damage because that trust was not accountable to local politicians or the community in any meaningful sense. There doesn’t have to be a return to centralised local authority models but there is sense in reforming governing bodies to make them not only representative but also accountable. Everyone knows about the Harper Valley PTA except for the Coalition!

As well as accountability there are also responsibilities to be allocated. You don’t need a centralised curriculum or a centralised bookstore but someone has to run school transport, provision for excluded pupils, admission procedures and things like that. Sub-regional networks of schools or local councils still have a job to do here and some creative thinking is needed.

Finally, there are some good things around which need to be nurtured. School-based initial teacher training has some real strengths but it needs more development and proper academic partnerships. Currently, the Coalition has managed to create a battleground between school and university based training so there is the space to build something new in no man’s land. Influential school networks are also emerging through teaching school alliances and the accreditation of local leaders and are, already, releasing some useful social capital into the system but they need to be reassured that they won’t be shot down by maverick Ofsted inspectors so that the system is given some longevity.

So, where we currently are in the development of education policy before an election is not a bad place. There are clear opportunities to draw lines between the Labour Party and the others in ways that will be attractive to voters and develop the system positively. It just needs a bit of courage.