Education is one area that hasn’t had as much coverage in the General Election campaign as I think it should have.
However, the news that Michael Gove is standing down as an MP at the upcoming General Election on 4th July reminded me of his time as Education Secretary from 2010 to 2014.
We really should not underestimate the damage Gove and Dominic Cummings did to Education in that period.
They rolled out the fragmented academy system, which makes it much harder for schools to pool resources, ideas, and skills. The era of schools being under democratic control of a local council and it being possible to save time and resources by having LEA wide initiatives was brought to an end.
Global Education Reform Movement
The move to academisation also increased the trend towards corporate management styles, which has done so much to drive teachers out of the profession. It can all be seen in the context of the Global Education Reform Movement, or GERM as it is commonly called. The acronym GERM was very appropriate.
- Indeed, Pasi Sahlberg was able to identify several prominent features of the GERM as follows:
- increased standardisation,
- a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on core subjects/knowledge,
- the growth of high stakes accountability
- and the use of corporate management practices
Furthermore, the Tories under Gove and Cummings and later Education Secretaries wasted an enormous amount of money on the failed free school experiment. This was an idea that Gove and Cumings had, that anyone could start up at school. Many of these schools opened to great fanfares, only to sink without trace shortly afterwards. In December 2019, Schools Week noted that data from the National Education Union had shown that £186 million had been wasted on this initiative, on 45 free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools, that had either closed or were due to close. Thus, we can see the expensive failure of what the BBC described as the flagship policy of 2010 Tory government, with Gove as Education Secretary.
Qualified Teacher rules relaxed
Gove and Cummings also allowed unqualified ‘teachers’ into the classrooms. It has been noted that from September 2012, the rules about having to be a qualified teacher to work in a school in England were relaxed, It was said that schools wanting to appoint someone on the basis of their special skills and experience no longer needed to consider whether or not there’s a teacher with qualified status available.
The consequence of this was that more and more lessons have been taught by staff who are not qualified teachers, but of course cost less to employ, with some schools having 10% or more lessons taught by people not qualified as teachers.
School curriculum narrowed
Gove and Cummings also narrowed the curriculum so that we have hundreds of thousands of square pegs in round holes, young people being failed by the education system that is supposed to nurture them and help them to develop. Consequently, the National Curriculum is simply not fit for purpose. A HMC survey of teachers and school leaders in 2021 noted that, “the current educational system is perceived to be failing to prepare young people to thrive in the 21st century, current assessments are too narrowly focussed and used for the wrong ends and the majority of respondents favour urgent reform of GCSEs.”
The survey also noted that there was too much focus on qualifications at the expense of the broader aims and there were, “concerns about how well the education system develops wellbeing, both mental and physical.” As a result of all this, there has been a massive increase in the number of pupils simply not attending school. Certainly, this has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, but the trend was in place before 2020. Back in 2017, the BBC noted that, “the overall pupil absence rate is 4.5%, according to the latest figures from the Department for Education. One in 10 of those school children are classed as “persistently absent””. Recent figures from the government, suggest that in Autumn term 2022/3, 22.4% of pupils were described as persistent absentees and although this figure did come down to 19.2% for Autumn term 2023/4, that is still a shockingly high figure.
Meanwhile, pupils in our region are further being let down by a curriculum, which is very southern focussed, in crucial respects, including the teaching of History and Literature. There is a desperate need for a more Northern Curriculum for our young people, as outlined here.
Technical and practical skills
We also need a greater emphasis on technical and practical skills for those pupils who have strengths in those areas. In this respect, I agree with the call in Head North, for two equal paths in education post-14, with a serious and aspirational technical path to go alongside the academic and university path, so providing a worthwhile education for all, as opposed to the broken and discredited system we have at present.
This could help young people to see a route into the local economy and consequently their aspirations could be raised. This kind of plan for the Northeast would be a vital component in a strategy to our young people to gear up for the challenges of the renewable energy transition which lies ahead.
Teacher retention and recruitment crisis
Gove and Cummings also began the huge teacher retention and recruitment crisis, which is still causing so much trouble today. It was reported by the National Foundation for Education Research in March of this year that, “both recruitment and retention issues are persisting – the latter made worse by increased teacher workload pressures since the pandemic” and that “workload challenges growing as a result of behaviour and pastoral support pressures”. The situation is so bad that the Times Educational Supplement reported in 2020 that new statistics from the Department of Education showed that, “almost a third of teachers leave the classroom within five years of qualifying.”
The introduction of components of the Global Education Reform Movement, under Gove and Cummings and the subsequent Conservative Education Secretaries have changed education for the worse. The Tories have done enormous damage to Education in this country since 2010. I hope voters remember that on 4th July.
