Report: After the ‘Gove revolution’: how can state education be improved?
Panel discussion organised by the Academy of Ideas Education Forum, Monday 25th March 2024
I was very pleased to chair an Academy of Ideas Education Forum discussion last month, exploring the often-fraught relationship between politics and education in the context of the fast-approaching UK General Election. As chair, I wanted to encourage an open and honest debate between rival educational perspectives.
There are many things that teachers need to urgently discuss if we are to move state education forward. To do so, we need to have a robust but also respectful exchange of ideas. My hope was that our debate would make a small contribution to that discussion.
As preparation, I had read the pre-election literature of both of the major political parties, and I have to say I went into our discussion with some serious concerns about the future.
If elected, it seems that the Labour Party intends to rewrite the school curriculum, giving a greater emphasis to instrumental objectives, such as the promotion of the mostly political concept of diversity, as well as the economic goal of vocational training. I really think this is the wrong direction of travel for compulsory state education.
Unlike the Labour Party, I believe that the focus of schools ought to be on providing the next generation with universal access to powerful knowledge. If anything, English state schools, in my view, need to become more, not less, academic in their focus. Teachers ought to be fostering the spirit of intellectual freedom and ambition in the young, not fitting them into a job, or promoting conformity to the political ideals of adults.
At the same time, the pre-election literature of the Conservative Party suggests that they have no real alternative to the Labour Party.
Whatever one thinks of Michael Gove, and I have many criticisms to make, he did at least make academic education central to English state-education policy during his time as secretary of state for education, from 2010 to 2014. You can read my thoughts on Gove's achievements here.
Today, I just don't know what the Conservatives stand for in terms of education. The policies they are hailing as a success after 13 years in power - such as extra funding for lessons missed during lockdown - strike me as very minor indeed. And anyway, it was the Conservative Party that chose to close schools during lockdown.
With all this in mind, I went into our debate with a very low view of the major political parties, but with the belief that we might be able to do better if we got a few committed teachers and educationalists together. I wasn’t disappointed.
Our discussion covered a wide range of issues, including the importance of knowledge within the curriculum, the negative impact of lockdown on the maturation of the young, the contradictory impact of performance-management systems within education, as well as the perennial problem of new teacher recruitment, training, retention and development.
Each of the speakers had a lot to say about these issues and I was pleased that they took care to avoid the simplistic and often reductive polarities that too often characterise much of the political discussion of state education.
You can watch a video of the debate here. I hope you enjoy it and find that it helps you think through some of the problems we must confront.
The Education Forum also regularly produces debates at the Battle of Ideas festival. To buy discounted early-bird tickets for this year’s festival - on Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 October at Church House, London - visit the Battle of Ideas tickets page.