A recent mailing from the FED wondered whether skills are beginning to take centre stage in the DfE's thinking. As evidence of this, the writer cites the fact that a long-time supporter of a long-term plan for education, the Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, has now been given the remit as Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, with a special focus on qualifications reviews in schools and colleges. I still wonder how well he will do as an outsider turned insider. I wrote about this the other day.
The FED went on:
"The spotlight on the need to rethink the focus on the breadth of educational pathways to support all learners has again been in the news this week, Hear the words of Izzy Garbutt, Member of the UK Youth Parliament for Wigan and Leigh, who said:
'The quadratic formula was ingrained on my memory, ready to recall and apply to a question which may or may not come up in my maths question ... However there are a whole host of things that I have never been taught. ...The education system is supposedly created for young people. So please listen when we say it is failing us. We are picked up, put down and strapped into a never ending conveyor belt of academic testing. For years we have been calling for a curriculum for life. A curriculum that will see us with a greater understanding of the world around us. We are pleading for more emphasis on employability, communication skills and personal wellbeing.' "
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I am not against what Izzy is calling for. I was struck, however, by this: "The education system is supposedly created for young people" and wonder how many people actually think this.
This is obviously the literal case in that it's young people who go to school. But this is not the purpose of schools. Arguably most school curriculums are for the benefit of society now and in the immediate future; for continuity, renewal and revision. And for socialisation. They also tend to be for the good of the economy one way or another. All this illustrates why curriculum change is contested and often resisted. In totalitarian states, curriculums are usually for the benefit of the state and/or the ideology that underpins it – and the exploitative clique that runs it, of course.
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