Forward to the 19th century…

The Conservatives’ determination to return to traditional subjects ignores the pupils who need a different diet

By Judith Judd

Politicians who want to improve schools usually start by inventing a new variety. For Mrs Thatcher it was grant-maintained schools, free from local authority control, for the present government, academies and trust schools. Meanwhile, David Cameron’s Conservatives are limbering up to back hundreds of schools set up by parents.

Sometimes governments also worry about what’s happening in the classroom. In 1997, Labour promised to concentrate on “standards not structures”, though, as the years passed, the structures loomed larger: they are a simpler political option.

More recently, the Conservatives have also taken a stab at the non-structural business of what children should be taught in school. Michael Gove’s substantial speech to the RSA last autumn laid out his thoughts about what pupils should be learning in 2010. His emphasis was firmly on knowledge rather than skills, praising traditional subjects such as history and taking a populist swipe at media studies. He said: “There is a quite indefensible assumption among some that the only experience to which the young are entitled, or even open, are those which have a direct and contemporary relevance to their lives.” The result, he said, was restricted access “to the inheritance which is theirs by right and which previous generations fought for”.

So he wanted, for example, history that covered key events in our island story such as the Wars of the Roses, rigorous science and more literature in modern languages. There is little evidence of the new Conservatism here, more a rerun of arguments that have shaped the educational debate for at least a quarter of a century.

Mrs Thatcher intervened to introduce more facts into history and Kenneth Clarke, as Education Secretary, wanted it to stop 20 years before the present day. At the core of Mr Gove’s argument is a subject-dominated curriculum that has changed little since the 19th century.

He has said less about the latest arrival in the secondary curriculum, the 17 vocational diplomas for pupils aged between 14 and 19 that are designed to run alongside A-level. The Conservatives will cancel the final phase of the three “academic” diplomas that Labour plans to introduce and will change the rest in subjects such as business, IT, hospitality, travel and tourism.

The diplomas may benefit from an overhaul. An Exeter University study last year found support for them in schools but concern about their rigour. A Reading University survey said pupils still saw them as second rate. Kathleen Tattersall, the head of Ofqual, the government quango for exam standards, has said that they need to be simplified. Some teachers say they are not practical enough. At one school, pupils on the construction diploma had to be offered a separate course in bricklaying to keep them interested.

Yet the diplomas’ aim - to engage pupils who might otherwise become disillusioned with school - is as important as ever. They may be flawed but they are a more likely route to educational success for thousands of 14-year-olds than traditional qualifications. If Mr Gove wants to change or scrap them, he needs to come up with a credible replacement.

He is right to suggest that teachers should not give up too easily on Macbeth and the battle of Waterloo for younger pupils but all the evidence shows that, beyond the age of 14, some pupils need a different diet to equip them for work and the world. Scroll back five years to the Tomlinson report, a major review of qualifications for this age group that aimed “to tackle the reasons why young people underachieve and leave education early by providing lessons and course that stretch and engage all learners”.

The report quotes research showing that about 20 per cent of 14 to 16-year-olds are so disengaged from school that they need to be offered courses that take them out of the classroom, to further education, work or to learn through leisure pursuits such as football or music. A further 20 per cent, those who get fewer than five good GCSEs, would be better served by good vocational qualifications. Far from accepting Mr Gove’s attack on the “tyranny of relevance”, the researchers propose tailoring programmes with plenty of practical application to fit each individual.

We are not talking about small numbers here but about 40 per cent of the school population. The failure to improve their lot has been one of English education’s greatest failures. Some of these do get and hold down jobs when they leave schools but a growing number do not. The number of those aged between 16 and 24 not in education, employment or training (Neets) was 935,000 last year, up 125,000 on the previous year.

Some ideas about how to deal with this group are already circulating in the Conservative party. Lord Baker, a former Education Secretary, is backing new university technical colleges for 14 to18-year-olds. Young people who attend these will be half-apprentice and half-student. As Lord Baker puts it: “If you’re doing building development, you’re holding a trowel.”

Even if Mr Gove and his team see the technical colleges as a sideline to parent-run schools and academies, they should think hard about courses that will keep the unmotivated in education. The Wars of the Roses, King Lear, algebra and all the subjects that they remember from their schooldays won’t do.

20 February 2010

Judith Judd. Former editor of The Times Educational Supplement,