What shall we do about vocational education?

Education policy is full of contradictions and mixed messages and today's announcement on the declassification of vocational qualifications, in terms of their status in school league tables, is a case in point. For the past 35 years - since James Callaghan's acclaimed Ruskin College speech calling for a great debate on what we want from our education system - every Secretary of State has spoken at length on the importance of vocational education, about bridging the academic-vocational divide and about the need to provide the right kind of labour supply to our once great engineering and manufacturing sector.

The practical moves have, though, been much more tentative: GNVQs appeared to flourish briefly post 16-but never became firmly established at Key Stage 4; Key Skills never achieved the foothold in our schools that they did secure in our more vocationally inclined FE colleges; in the same era the notion of "disapplication" briefly allowed students who struggled with the full National Curriculum at Key Stage 4 to drop particular subjects in favour of a programme of "work related learning"; Ruth Kelly rejected Tomlinson's key recommendation that the Diploma model should be applied to both academic and vocational programmes, although there was a retrospective attempt to do just this during Ed Ball's tenure in Great Smith Street; Michael Gove, supported by his traditionally-inclined school secretary Nick Gibb, has been clearer, appearing to be much less fond of vocational 'relevance' and much more fond of academic 'rigour', albeit while his colleagues at BIS have been calling for a resurgence in the apprenticeship system, something that the unintended consequences of tuition fees might help deliver.

The flirtation with disapplication let the vocational cat out of the academic bag: disengaged, unmotivated, less successful, or maybe just less able? Step out of the mainstream and into the also-ran world of alternative curricula. Throwing the naughty boys (for it were usually they) a car engine was never the way to boost the status of vocational learning or that of the careers in engineering and manufacturing that such an education might lead to. Thus, vocational programmes have too often come to represent a curriculum that learners fall onto rather than one that they might aspire to; of course, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: able students, and schools that want to serve able students, shy away from vocational learning while schools in more challenging circumstances and more disadvantaged intakes reach for this 'relevant' curricula because it suits 'their kids' - and with points in the league table, who might blame these schools for grasping at the appearance of parity and a measure of educational success? This is hardly a recipe for attracting our most able into engineering or design or manufacturing. Rather than closing it, phoney parity emphasises the gap between the academic and the vocational domains: a failure for all.

The problem is that, taken alone, today's action further depletes the status of vocational learning without any attempt to meet the real challenge: the need to transform it. The news on the abolition of the parity that never was should have been coupled with a cross-party commitment to deliver the best vocational education in Europe within a decade, not as an alternative to the academic route but as a part of every child's education. Three steps would be helpful in this respect.

First, all secondary schools should be inspected not just on curriculum rigour (which the promotion of the E-bac seeks to demonstrate success in, albeit clumsily and unimaginatively) but on curricular breadth. Following the Secretary of State's desire to 'free teachers from prescription', schools might be encouraged to be creative in how they demonstrate this but demonstrate it, they must. Thus, any school that does not open up opportunities that ensure an entitlement for every student to participate in high quality work related learning (and, for that matter, learning programmes focused on the development of creativity, curiosity and effective citizenship) should not be able to achieve 'outstanding' status because of the narrowness of its curricular offer. A programme composed of ten GCSEs is not a broad one - I write as a former GCSE Chief Examiner - but a curriculum that adds to the E-bac an excellent vocational component, a community service element, good quality citizenship education and a real exposure to sport, the arts and creativity is.

Second, and at the same time, we should re-conceptualise vocational education as professional and vocational education; this is the 'nudge' to the middle classes that such learning is something for their children to seek out rather than to walk away from. Degrees in Law, Medicine, Marketing and Finance are profoundly vocational in nature; how about opening up learning in these spheres in our schools - taster programmes, summer internships, curriculum modules, delivered in partnership with the professions concerned? Anybody who wants to take a look at examples of such work would be wise to look at the Citizenship Foundation's excellent and long-standing Lawyers in Schools programme and their mock trial competitions - for they constitute brilliant vocational education, even if their aim is to educate about the law more broadly.

Third, let's do all of this while thinking not about parity but about complementariness. It should never have mattered whether a course in hairdressing or bricklaying or business studies is equal in status to one in geography or history or French. It does matter that every young person experiences a curriculum shot through with a strong dose of high quality professional and vocational education, whether the outcome is a career in carpentry or surveying, medicine or law.

Today feels like another assault on vocational learning; it doesn't need to be - let's make it the start of something new.

Citizenship Education and the National Curriculum Review: a disappointment or a chink of light?

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education has dispatched an interesting Christmas card to all interested in the next iteration of the National Curriculum, the first report from the National Curriculum Review Expert Panel.

Conspiracy theorists will note that their report has arrived just after most schools have closed for Christmas but this is probably the Expert Panel struggling with as many deadlines as the rest of us and having a few 'fall over' into the holiday period. The panel is made up of a small but formidable membership of long established and highly respected educationalists, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

My initial reading of this first report from the group, and from the specific perspective of somebody with a long-standing professional and personal interest in Citizenship Education and the wider social curriculum is that it is better than it might have been for those devoted to this area of teaching and learning. For those unfamiliar with the area, Citizenship became a statutory (or "Foundation") subject of what was then, if I recall correctly, the third substantive version of the National Curriculum in 2002. This followed a landmark report commissioned by David Blunkett and produced by the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, published in 1998. This position was maintained when version 4 of the curriculum arrived five years later in 2007.

Prior to 2002 - and from the early 1990s - Citizenship had been conferred the status of a non-statutory "Cross-curricular Theme", along with four or five other areas of learning including Careers Education and Guidance and Economic and Industrial Understanding. However, in a subject dominated timetable, the reality proved to be that, in many schools, this cross-curricular status meant that these themes were 'everywhere' but 'nowhere' - as teachers and leadership teams attended, understandably, to their subject and other statutory responsibilities. I know - I was a Cross-Curricular Theme Coordinator in a North London secondary school at the time.

In the next version of the National Curriculum, this initial report proposes that Citizenship will lose it statutory subject status. Why then am I optimistic? Two reasons: first, in that Citizenship remains a 'statutory' requirement if not a 'compulsory' subject - perhaps, in this new age, it can manage to be "more than a cross-curricular theme" albeit less than a "subject"; second, the excellent subject-based and subject-inspired practice developed in many "Citizenship-rich" schools will not disappear because of this change. The Citizenship Education community can take pride in this; the watermark is considerably higher than it was in 2002 and, working with teachers on the ground, they have done much to ensure that this is the case.

Either way, the Expert Panel seems to be winning the debate (with Mr Gove and his traditionally inclined schools' minister, Nick Gibb) for a broad statutory curriculum - albeit with fewer statutory 'subjects' - as against a narrower model in which the four statutory subjects are the only compulsory element, with schools doing 'what they want' with the rest of the available time.

This is a significant shift and one for campaigns such as Democratic Life (the inter-organisational campaign originally established by the Citizenship Foundation and the Association for Citizenship Teaching a couple of years ago to advance the case for retaining and strengthening Citizenship in the National Curriculum) to build on in the new year, especially given that implementation is now pushed back to the eve of the next election in September 2014.

This extended timescale is significant too: there is a record of initiating curriculum reforms at the start of new governments and pushing their outcome back to the closing phases before an up-coming election (Tomlinson is the most recent example of this), something that always favours (encouragingly in this case) the status quo or, at least, and more worryingly, the 'traditional' position. Either way, I see a chink of light, and I think that the Expert Panel do too.

Examinations: let's take this as a wake-up call rather than an excuse to indulge in 'moral panic'

Today's Daily Telegraph 'splash' on the examination system raises important questions about the place of testing in our education system, the wisdom of arranging the major awarding bodies into what amounts to a price-setting oligopoly and, of course, the integrity of the examinations themselves. But, fuelled by the words of a small number of senior examiners - rightly described by one awarding body representative as "injudicious" - the news is unremarkable, or at least unsurprising.

Let me get my own "conflicts of interest" out of the way: throughout the 1990s I served variously as a Team Leader, a Principal Examiner, a Chief Examiner and a Chair of Examiners across GCSE and A level in subjects such as Social Sciences, Sociology and Social Policy, and I did so, as is normal, while working as a teacher, teaching alternative specifications. Frequently, I spoke at conferences, ran training seminars for teachers and revision or examination preparation courses for students, and produced articles and contributed to books, including school text books; examiner status conferred authority. More recently, I've accepted an invitation to join the Board of Industry Qualifications (IQ), a new awarding body (and a new type of awarding body) concerned with assessment in the field of professional and vocational education and I continue to scrutinise GCSE papers in Citizenship Studies for one of the big examination boards.

At one stage in this examining career, with my friend, mentor and examining colleague Mike Moores, we ran free-to-attend examination strategy courses for parents and students at a range of comprehensive schools in and around North London. "Cheating" was never a part of the deal (and nor was showboating our examiner status, as some of those 'caught' on tape might be accused of) but giving an insight into how exams work, how examiners' minds work and how a careful study of past papers might reveal trends, key words and questions styles emphatically was. We were enabling students to understand the system, providing much of the cultural capital that a private tutor might offer to a wealthier child and certainly what teachers at elite public schools provide - on everything from A level technique to navigating the university application system - for their charges.

So, let us not castigate those teachers and schools who have the good sense to invest in ensuring that they know all that they should know about exams, examiners and the examination system. And, let us ensure that all students, not just a wealthy few, can access revision programmes with examiner input (the wonders of the web make this possible as never before). Nor should we worry that this kind of thing places the integrity of question papers in doubt; those who succeed should do so because they respond well and produce good answers in strictly controlled, silent conditions, not simply because they manage to correctly guess what is on 'the paper'.

But, let's use the Telegraph's story as a wake-up call, rather than the spur for a moral panic. Twenty years ago, when I started out in examining - as a young teacher keen to learn about how the system worked - for myself and for my students, there were at least a dozen examination boards at GCSE and at A level. Now, three organisations, one owned by a global publisher of, amongst other things, exam text books, 'run' that market. Moreover, there is an attempt to exam almost everything that happens in secondary schools through the narrowing lens of these two examination formats (GCSE and A level), an obsession with grades that is now beyond healthy and a situation where secondary schools spend considerably more 'cash' on examination entries than on teaching and learning resources. And, just to add grist to the mill, examination results trigger inspections and are aggregated to form a measure of school rather than student success, all this in a competitive market where grades publicly define an individual school's status. Now, there's the scope for a commission or inquiry - not about simply how our examination system works, but how our education system does, the latter led and corrupted by the former. Over to you, Mr. Gove!

We need to distinguish between illicit access, professional lobbying and legitimate campaigning

There seems to be some muddled thinking out there in the aftermath of the Adam Werritty and Bell Pottinger affairs and the reported (and sometimes filmed) endeavours of former ministers to open up the gates of power, if others (those seeking illicit access to the influential) will open their cheque books. It seems to me we need to establish two things here: first, that lobbying (placing legitimate pressure - through protesting and campaigning - on those making decisions or influential in the decision-making process) is vital in a healthy democracy and, for that matter, in an unhealthy one; second, that offering illicit access for payment or through elite and closed networks definitely distorts this process while engaging professional 'third party' lobbyists risks doing so. Whether through the brown envelope, the old school tie or the lobbyists fee, the latter more about buying power rather than winning authority, as one might through argument, campaign or protest.

Here, the work of interest groups, especially those small and medium sized organisations that dominate the third sector and civil society more broadly - community groups, charities, social enterprises - is completely different. The effectiveness, power and authority of their lobbying rests not in the size of their bank balance or the fee they can pay to get others to do their lobbying for them but in their ability to win supporters to their cause through argument, ingenuity and sheer hard work. And it rests the talent of their committed staff, trustees and volunteers.

Punishing those caught 'buying' influence through the back door will strengthen democracy, clipping the wings of the professional lobbyists (through registers and regulation) will protect it, encouraging and building the capacity of those campaigning for change will invigorate it, putting an Arab-style 'spring' in all our steps, producing a bigger society by any definition.

Perhaps the more enlightened and corporately responsible professional lobbying firms might re-invent themselves - not just lobbying for their wealthy clients, but developing a business model that enables them to share their tool-box more broadly - offering training to community groups, smaller charities and others who are short on human, social and financial capital. If their 'dark arts' are brought into the light, we might all benefit - and our politics would too.

Let's not go from austerity in the economy to austerity in the curriculum: art for all our sakes

When the economic climate is tough, it is normal for the pendulum to swing towards a concern for the basics, not least in the field of education. The spirit is of ‘lock-down’ not luxury and in educational terms that tends to translate into a focus on standards, especially in terms of literacy and numeracy, a stronger concern for discipline and behavior and a tendency to blame current woes, not least the past summer’s disturbances, on the liberal indulgences of the past.

Whatever the merits of a swing back towards more ‘conservative’ practice, this blame culture is unhelpful. No educationalist, progressive or traditional, should be content when any child leaves formal education without the skills of word or number that are so vital to success and none is - a cursory look at the literacy levels amongst the low paid and within prison communities will confirm the perils of not having these capacities. Likewise, while progressives and traditionalists might differ on what good discipline is and how it is achieved, no educationalist seeks to promote or reward behavior that undermines learning.

Too often, though, those on the progressive side of this divide have inadvertently allowed their desire to ‘do’ education differently to be equated with a lack of concern for standards and basics while traditionalists have been content to present anything beyond their notion of a core curriculum as the ‘fluffy’ stuff to be dealt with, if at all, after the basics have been delivered. And, thanks to the positions taken by each set of protagonists, it is into this corner, that the arts, the humanities and creativity are painted; this makes the current environment a challenging one for theatre companies such as Arc Theatre for Change, the Barking based education and diversity focused company led by Carole Pluckrose and Clifford Oliver where I have the privilege of being a Board Member. “How will it impact on our results?” is the understandable cry from school leaders and local authority advisers, when the possibility of a performance is put to them. No wonder, at a time when grades matter all the more, cash is tight, the future is uncertain and the pendulum is swinging towards a narrower conception of what schools are for and what they need to do.

This summer’s ‘riots’ should give policymakers and practitioners pause for thought. The millionaire’s daughter and the miscreant teaching assistant may have grabbed the headlines but the emerging arrest and conviction statistics suggest that many of the participants were from the other side of the tracks. The key to unlocking the potential of these young people, those that are the least engaged in our educational system - those that come from the most disrupted backgrounds - does not lie in lock-down but in serious attempts to harness their creativity and engage them in the liberating project that education can and ought to be. Here, the arts, the humanities, citizenship, the wider social curriculum and pedagogic approaches and processes that are human, rather than industrial, in scale are vital. Work such as that which Arc is engaged in through pieces like Stereo, Boy X and Girl E engages precisely these young people for three reasons: first, it gives voice to their experience; second, it involves them directly, through the medium of drama, in the telling of their stories; third, in so doing, it develops their self-esteem, their capacity to drive change and many of the skills vital for success within and beyond the classroom. In the rush to ‘basics’ and a desire to get tough with ‘feral’ youth, it would be an error to think that tough discipline and a narrower curricular offer, underpinned by the introduction of the new e-baccalaureate and an emaciated ‘back to basics’ National Curriculum, will deal with the problem.

Few things are as important as these basics but we are only likely to ensure that the most disaffected of our young people master them, if we are anything but basic in our approach. The arts, the humanities and the wider social curriculum aren’t the ‘fluffy’ stuff to be put off until a better day; they are a key means of building inclusion and achievement across the ability and motivational range, as the young actors engaged in delivering Arc’s seminal work, and their appreciative audiences, will testify. To find out more about Arc go to: http://www.arctheatre.com/

Citizenship tests for newcomers may miss the mark but Citizenship Education for all is vital

Last week, on Tuesday 29th September, I had a letter published in The Times - a response to a thoughtful column from Libby Purves, published the previous day, in which she criticised the questions, style and focus in the tests sat by newcomers (and sometimes not-so-newcomers) to the UK who are seeking British Citizenship. The Times' pay-wall means that I can't reproduce the letter in full here but I picked up on the nugget towards the close of her article asking whether every school student should pass a (rather better) test before getting the vote.

We may all share different views on testing but the point Purves makes does open up the irony: why continue to expect 'newcomers' to formally qualify as 'citizens' at a time when the position of Citizenship in the National Curriculum appears to be under threat and when access to adult education (other than for those seeking citizenship) in this area is almost non-existant, in spite of the recommendations of NIACE and others, in a landmark report on lifelong learning, a couple of years ago? Shouldn't we all understand (or at least have the chance to explore in educational settings) what, as I put it in the letter, "...our key values are, how our society works and what politics is about?" Now, that would lay the foundations for a genuinely "Big" (and better) society!

Breslin publishes new post on social networking on the Independent's blog

Following my recent participation at the Battle of Ideas, the annual festival of debate organised by the Institute of Ideas, as a panelist in a discussion about the impact of social networking on community life, I've posted an article on the Independent's blog