Education Ejucashun Edyoocayshon

28/07/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Education Ejucashun Edyoocayshon
That’s what Labour promised, right? They told us all that a couple of terms of a left-of-center government would see a huge increase in school expenditure which, it stands to reason, would result in all our kids leaving for work awash in an ocean of qualifications and knowledge. And let’s be fair, that’s exactly what happened.  Sort of.

Let’s deal with the funding first. Labour spent huge sums of money on the schools. They literally showered them in funds. But that didn’t work because as usual the lefties, unfamiliar with the concept of money as a tool, thought that just throwing cash at a problem makes it go away. So what did they do? Introduced targets and tests and quangos and an enhanced national curriculum to fix the problem. And that didn’t work either - as any businessman would have told them it could not. Quite the opposite, it stifled the schools ability to excel and experiment, or even just to do the job at which they are the experts, locking them into a system that was mired in box-ticking politically-correct bureaucracy.

Since this was clearly not producing the desired result the government had no choice but to preside over a steady and relentless “dumbing down” of examinations - if only to encourage an endlessly larger number of people into university. It didn’t matter that a hefty proportion of those people were wholly unsuited to university. Labour, who have always claimed to be the “party of the people”, seem to only mean this when the people they are referring to are some stereotype that fits their mould. Their aspiration to “send everybody to university” is mean-spirited. It demeans those people whose gifts are somewhere other than regimented further education, somehow suggesting that if they don’t aspire to a particular brand of learning then their skills are second-rate. Frankly, in a survival situation I would prefer a carpenter or a builder or a labourer to an art history or sociology graduate on my desert island - but perhaps that’s just me.

What I like about the current direction of Conservative education policy is the idea to let the markets provide. I’m not one of these free market idealists who think an uncontrolled and unregulated free market is the solution to everything. But in general, if the problem is fitting people’s needs with available resources in a cost-effective and organised way - markets deliver.  You have to keep an eye on things, but you have to give the markets the freedom to do what they do best. 

In practice, the premise to let businesses and other interests set up schools outside of the established monopoly is a wonderful one. Some regulation and control will be necessary to be sure schools meet certain basic standards, but beyond that they should be free to design their own criteria. As long as government funding follows each individual student the schools will be forced to meet the demands of the kids and their parents. If there is demand for a certain type of school - the markets will provide it. If a school is failing - the markets will remove it. All schools will be forced to be cost-effective and progressive if they want to attract students.

Teaching unions wont like any of this, of course.  It removes their cosy monopoly and forces them to consider the service they offer and how they offer it - or face closure.  Instead of parents fighting to try and get their kids into the school they want, those schools will humbly beg for their partonage.  Instead of having to put up with the status quo, parents will be able to express their unhappiness with the school’s governance by taking their child elsewhere - and safe in the knowledge that there will be somewhere else to take them! 

When you put the power into the hands of the consumer instead of the grasping claws of the establishment it is like shaking the very foundations of a clunky old beast and watching the dust and cobwebs float free.  It is time to give our children the education they need and deserve.  And this time, when they leave with qualifications, they should be qualifications that employers can trust.  What was that?  Did somebody say O-Levels?  Now there’s a thought…

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