Education Reforms ‘Off Target’
‘No excuses’ proclaims Ed Balls; schools must reach the minimum government GCSE targets. There has been a worrying trend of successive governments that have attempted to quantify the performance of schools through examining GCSE and A level results.
This crusade, launched to understand which schools give value for public money, has the opposite effect. It simply tests which schools have the apparatus to create ‘exam factories’. It creates a nation of young people who are quite superb at reciting which ‘assessment objectives’ they are required to ‘hit’ to tick government boxes. But ask them something which does not appear on the syllabus and you will receive a quizzical stare. Most likely followed by the question ‘but that’s not on the syllabus?!’. I know this because I am a product of this system, and the syllabus is taught in a manner akin to the gospels in a monastery. The consequence is that neither GCSE’s nor ‘A’ Levels give you adequate insight to the subject you study, but instead only equip you with the tools to hit arbitrary government targets.
Over and above this, the government seems unaware or, more likely, uninterested that schools can provide young people with skills that cannot be quantified by exam league tables. The threat that those schools that fail to reach the minimum government target will be shut down will further stifle the other services provided by schools. Extra-Curricular activities will be outlawed in a desperate attempt to bring the school into line with government targets, and the less academic pupils will become even more disillusioned with a system that seems to consistently overlook their strengths. The great irony is that another government initiative that attempts to reform education, further isolates schools from the people they exist to help, their pupils.
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