BY JOE NUTT
Professionals who have to know these things to do their job, know that Wales has quickly followed Scotland in becoming an international educational basket case. The worrying question now is, are England’s schools about to follow them into the trash? Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence started the rot. I was there at the birth, physically in the same offices, and watched the monster evolve from a Silicon Valley driven attempt to modernise the curriculum to suit sales targets, into a covertly politicised project in which schools quickly became regarded by politicians, as legitimate and conveniently upstream levers to pull.
Some years later I was even pulled in by a senior figure in Welsh education who saw the danger signals and hoped I might be able to stem the tide by advising a key appointment from Scotland, before they took up their new role. The appointment upped sticks and went back north of the border but the tide flooded in nonetheless.
The absurd storm in a doll’s house thimble over the drama Adolescence is really the most high profile example of this insidious trend. The idea that education might be about the individual child, about their knowledge, their future life and success; has almost vanished under the overwhelming weight of political interference from every possible corner of the educational world. The education sector today is putrefied by party politics.
There are plenty of other people and organisations who have drawn attention to the way schools have been exploited by all kinds of individual activists and campaigning organisations, often under the doubtful cloak of charitable activity. There is lots of online debate about disturbing materials that these activists and campaigners put in front of other people’s children, under the mandatory rainbow banners. Whether you are a climate change fanatic who has barely outgrown colouring in books, panicked by brightly coloured weather maps, or a rabid anti-Semite who thinks wearing the scarf all good terrorists are wearing this season makes you more attractive, the message you have been given from all kinds of politicians is feel free, because schools are an open goal.
In a matter of decades we have moved from a place where schools were predominantly regarded as institutions in which significant cultural and scientific knowledge went from adults to children, to one where they are now the key means by which politicians of all brands openly seek to exert influence over the population. Look at what education minister Bridget Phillipson posts on her social media when she wants her activity to appear impressive and I defy you to find anything educational.
This educationally destructive idea has become so commonplace, Keir Starmer felt no compunction whatsoever in suggesting all schools should show children a hugely contentious television drama, for no reason other than it suited his party’s immediate and ephemeral political agenda. I’m sure the idea that it might be ethically wrong to do so, didn’t even enter his human rights lawyer head. His ugly misuse of schools hasn’t even been challenged by a mainstream media equally comfortable with the idea that your children are theirs to manipulate.
This is an abhorrent, undemocratic and degrading exploitation of schools and teachers, but worst of all, other people’s children. Any political party that exhibits such an attitude simultaneously demonstrates their fundamental unsuitability to be managing anything to do with schools, of any kind. Education warps into indoctrination only in tyrannical and communist regimes.
In the past I’ve been approached by a number of businesses interested in employing a conference speaker for an important event they are sponsoring, and tasked with researching that speaker and their output, in order to reassure or caution my client about employing them. These businesses are wise enough to know that the education sector is rife with fads and charlatans peddling specious theories like the infamous learning styles, or digital native myths, that no matter how often or how hard they are debunked by credibly experienced professionals, somehow find a way back to the surface. School leaders, whether headteachers or chief executives of large academy trusts, are simply not skilled enough or equipped to carry out this kind of quality assurance work. Most don’t even grasp that inviting in external speakers may be a risk.
So that is why instead of any politician demanding schools should all be putting their pet propaganda in front of your children, exactly the opposite is what should be happening. All sensible schools aware of their educational responsibilities, never mind existing law, should institute a moratorium on external speakers, today.
Only when governance teams are satisfied that their senior managers not just understand the need to quality assure whoever steps in the door to talk about something, but have the skills needed to make that decision, should that moratorium be lifted.
I find it difficult to believe any responsible parent would send their child to any school, if they knew that the school had no systems at all in place to quality assure external speakers. “I know another school who had them,” really isn’t any kind of reason. Yet that is in effect exactly what is happening all over the UK, week after week, and in every type of school. It has to stop and schools need to remind politicians to literally mind their own business; which, let’s face it, is advice they all sorely need.
Joe Nutt is the author of several books about the poetry of Donne, Milton and Shakespeare and a collection of essays, The Point of Poetry. His latest book, Teaching English for the Real World was published by John Catt in May 2020.