Long-Term Approach to Education

Education
Edward Alfred Briscoe Drury  (1856-1944)
Photo Credit: William Morris Gallery
[CC BY-NC]

 Sir, We welcome the work of the Times Education Commission and urge the government to look seriously at its recommendations. The pandemic has created a reset movement and it is imperative that education is put back at the top of the political agenda to boost productivity and make a reality of the levelling-up agenda.

The commission has highlighted the importance of taking a serious long-term approach to education, from the early years through school, to further and higher education and lifelong learning, to better prepare young people for the challenges they face. The changing world of work, stalled social mobility, the growing mental health crisis and new technology means that reform is more important than ever to capitalise on all the country's talent.

Sir Tony Blair, Sir John Major, the former education secretaries Justine Greening, Baroness Morgan of Cotes, Ed Balls, Alan Johnson, Ruth Kelly, Charles Clarke, Baroness Morris of Yardley, Lord Blunkett, Baroness Shepherd of Northwold, Lord Baker of Dorking, Sharon White, chairman, John Lewis Partnership [and many other signatures]

(The Times, 2022)

At last, a realisation that a long-term approach to education is required. However, this should have been announced forty years ago but party politics, as usual, prevented such an outcome. Take Education and the NHS out of the political realm, or at the very least have a cross party commission to ensure a long-term approach is followed without all of the political interference which has crippled both sectors for decades.  

As the editorial in The Times puts it "Yet the scale of reform required will be impossible without a long-term strategy commanding the widest possible support. The commission's proposals are backed by two former prime ministers, Sir John Major and Sir Tony Blair, as well as 12 former education secretaries. Now it is up to the government and other political parties to rise to this most urgent of national challenges."

Will it happen? I wouldn't bet on it.

*... A broader and more balanced education system can produce a workforce with a more rounded set of skills and perspectives, better preparing them for a wider set of jobs throughout their lives. Given the breadth of support for the commission's report, it is surely time for a cross-party approach to implementing a genuine reset of education. Our country both needs and deserves it

(Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, in a letter to the Times, 2022)

*... The TBI (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change) ... calls for the national curriculum to be placed under the control of an independent expert commission to stop it lurching between the "ideological idiosyncrasies" dominating the government of the day.

"The national curriculum has become a political football," the report says, rather than a set of standards to ensure pupils learn the skills they need.

(Emma Yeomans, The Times, 2022)

The next letter to the Times sums up everything perfectly.

Sir, It is hard to know whether it is tragic, ironic or comic that key political figures from this century and the previous one who had the power to change education are now so vigorously supporting recommendations from the Times Education Commission that they could not themselves implement. The very fact that so many former education secretaries are available to lend their signature is itself an indication of the failure of governments to enact a serious, coherent, long-term strategy.

(John Claughton, Chief Master, King Edward's School, Birmingham, 2006-2016)