Welsh Education – We must do better

EconomyPeople
ViewsNovember 10th, 2011

Apart from a few ‘flat-earthers’ there is general agreement thatWales’ education system is in need of reform and revitalisation. The most worrying indication of system failure was provided by last year’s PISA results, but these only confirmed the picture painted by GCSE and A level scores. PISA simply told us that we are underperforming on a global scale as well as a UK one. Although the picture is more nuanced than some of the media coverage suggested, and there are many success stories to be told, the pace of improvement needs to quicken.

There was a flurry of activity in the wake of the poor PISA performance. Two high level ministerial speeches, a new school standards unit, and the advent of school banding have been some of the key responses of the Welsh Government. The BBC produced several programmes and the Western Mail a whole month of essays on the question: Education in Wales must do better, discuss?

Three fundamental problems seem to have collided to make the current crisis. Firstly, the chronic under funding of Welsh education inflicted by Welsh governments since devolution has taken its toll. In education as in most other things you get what you pay for. Secondly, the revolving door of Directors at the department of education meant that strategic continuity was weak. Thirdly, the desire of ministers for Wales to be different in the post-devolution age resulted in a raft of initiatives which produced policy overload in schools.

So much for the past, what about the future? There has to be focus on three main areas: funding, delivery, and improving outcomes for youngsters. The manifesto pledge made by Labour to spend above the block grant was welcome, as was the seemingly unanimous endorsement by all parties of ATL’s call for greater education funding. We will have to see how much of that is deliverable given Westminster’s slash and burn approach to public finance. But the current Minister is correct to remind us that funding is not the only problem. Delivery and outcomes need to be addressed as well. And here we must tread carefully. While delivery is the responsibility of schools, outcomes are determined by factors by no means within their control. We have to steer a middle course between the naivety of assuming that raw results are an indication of a school’s effectiveness and the patronising attitude that believes that poor children are not capable of achieving excellent results.

Blaming schools or teachers for underperformance would be counter-productive. For some children school is the only point of stability – and possibly hope – in their lives. Teachers need the back up of policy makers and civic society to build on those foundations. The school system inWaleshas had to look at itself long and hard in the last year or so. Some of what we’ve seen is not pretty. It’s no longer sufficient for Welsh education to be different to England (and who in their right minds would want to imitate the reckless experimentation going on across the border?) it’s got to be better. The primacy and value of education needs to be hard-wired into the very DNA of Wales.

Philip Dixon is Director of  ATL Cymru

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