The government, the SATs and the boycott

 

 

 

 

The   proposals from the Government’s’ Expert Group’ that SATs in English and maths should  continue is not what campaigners expected. It’s clear that the proposed ‘stage not age’ tests outlined in the consultation document ’Making good progress’ are not ready and the Expert Group are asking for an extension of the current pilots as well as  proposing further pilots on making teacher assessment more ‘rigorous’.  In future, they think  SATs may be able to be abolished, but not yet!  We shouldn’t make too much of the decision to scrap the science tests. Whether the  Rose  report on the primary curriculum is implemented of not, his proposal  for removing science from the ‘core’ reflects  existing government thinking, which is to replace science with ICT as the third functional skill.

 

The National Association of Headteachers   and   the National Union of Teachers have both voted to boycott the SATs in 2010, but arguably, this strategy has been based on an assumption that the testing regime was going to be changed and they’d be able to negotiate a compromise in time for the new academic year. This is now unlikely to happen. Bounced into a ballot, their first ever national ballot for industrial action, the big question is whether the NAHT leadership, without the ‘organising culture’ of the NUT will be able to deliver. With the boycott likely to create a legal nightmare, in many respects the key players will be chairs of governors and their legal advisers. The attitude of the national governor organisations will also be extremely significant.

 

The Expert Group have turned the SATs debate into one of ‘accountability’. They are aware, even accept arguments about the educational   shortcomings of the testing regime, but consider that the summative advantages of mass testing outweigh these. The government still wants to move towards the school report card rather than league tables as the main vehicle for providing information about schools, but they want all the information to be collated into a one report card grade.

 

Though the current trade union laws put a time limit on when action must take place after a successful ballot, NAHT and NUT  must start preparing their members for a boycott from the end of the summer term to avoid teachers returning to school in September uncertain of what they will be teaching and how. As part of their campaign for SATs to be replaced by teacher assessment, they must also confront the Government’s   market driven agenda head-on, coming up with real alternatives that will increase not only ‘accountability’ but also school democracy .   With thousands of children,  sitting their SATs this coming week it’s time to up the anti

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                 MA

Education in and after the recession

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley

NUT  Conference April 2009

 

With no end to the recession and unemployment rising, what of New Labour’s promises of increased opportunities for those prepared to become more qualified?

 

The current generation of young people is not only the most highly educated but it is also likely to be the most disappointed, as the mismatch between what it assumed it could look forward to and the stark realities of the labour market become so apparent.

 

In economic downturns young people are always affected the most and sadly the current recession is no exception. Even by the start of this year over 600,000 in the 18-24 age group were estimated to be out of work – well over 15%, while the Guardian (24/03/09) reported unemployment amongst 16-17 year olds approaching 200,000 – almost 40% of those ‘economically active’.

 

In these hard times it clear that New Labour’s ‘standards agenda’ in schools, like the ‘skills agenda’ in further education, is not only proving to be  inadequate but questions also need to be asked about whether it will be enough to motivate young people to continue with their studies.

 

For many young people, ‘education’ is increasingly like running up a down escalator is evident in the fortunes of the current generation of graduates, either facing unemployment or more likely ‘underemployment’ – taking jobs for which they are overqualified. Studies show that despite piling up a lifetime’s worth of debts, well over a third of graduates don’t consider they are in ‘graduate jobs’.

 

Of course, the crisis in graduate employment has a knock on effect on young people as a whole; graduates taking jobs that are usually open to those educated to A-level starts a domino effect where those only able to obtain basic qualifications are destined for a life of ‘Mcjobs’.

 

As government rhetoric about new diplomas and promises to increase the number of ‘apprenticeships’ fail to impress, the economic downturn gives teacher trade unions like the NUT and UCU – also committed to improving the education and opportunities of the young people their members teach – the chance to promote alternatives that break the ‘education for employability’ culture which dominates learning and to replace the ‘business model’ by which schools, colleges and universities are organised.

The Pre-U Won’t Do

  

                                                              Martin Allen  *

 

                                                                                                                     

 

Proponents of Tomlinson style reform of 14-19 education may have been encouraged by last year’s   announcement of new diploma lines in more traditionally academic subjects – humanities, science and languages- alongside the original 11 diplomas in more directly vocational areas[1], yet there is still no evidence of the government planning to replace A-levels or ‘diplomarise’ them into an overarching certificate in the way that Tomlinson reformers hope. On the contrary, it has put back its proposed qualifications review till 2013, hoping the diplomas become bedded in alongside A-levels.

 

 

A-level; a post-war gold standard

 

Emerging out of the post-war construction of secondary education, the GCE A-level replaced the matriculation certificate. It was always assumed that the new qualification would be aimed at about 5% of the cohort – not the current 30%+ – mostly sons and daughters of the post-war middle class or some of the ‘socially mobile’ working class children who had entered grammar school. Regarded as an educational ‘gold standard’ but considered both elitist and too narrow by reformers it not only survived, but as Caroline Benn and Clyde Chitty observed, rather ironically, also thrived in the new comprehensive schools of the post-war period. [2]

As a result, in recent years government has failed to divert significant numbers of young people who now remain in full-time education beyond 16 into ‘vocational alternatives’ like BTECs. GNVQs and Applied A-levels A-level entries have continued to grow; now toping well over 800,000 annually.  Even though a long list of new subjects has emerged, ‘traditional’  ones  like English, mathematics and  biology continue to head the entries league, with only psychology breaking into the top 5 (TES 15/08/08). Rather than embracing new courses of study, students remain canny about preferences of elite universities for particular A-level subjects rather than others (Guardian 15/08/08).

 

Exclusivity v Accessibility

Despite the continued influence of ‘tradition’ however, there have been considerable changes to the A-level diet. The ‘Curriculum 2000 ‘ reforms though by no means as radical as New Labour’s original proposals for the reform of post-16, have been extremely significant.  Curriculum 2000 established a modularised two part AS-A2. It also encouraged a new emphasis on ‘skills’ rather than simply concentrating on content. The new structure also meant that students could retake modules, particularly at AS level so as to enhance their final grades – which they do in large numbers.

With the annual publication of A-level results invariably showing both a rise in pass rates and a rise in the number of candidates obtaining an ‘A’ grade, A-levels continue to be steeped in controversy  facing allegations of ‘dumbing down’ and grade inflation – Oxford University reportedly turned away 5000 students with three straight A grades in 2007. (Guardian 14/08). In 2004 allegations that examination boards were tampering with grade boundaries as a result of pressure from government led to the resignation of QCA’s Chief Executive and the creation of Tomlinson’s working group on 14-19 reform.

 

The emergence of the Cambridge Pre-U                                    

It is in this context that we should consider the emergence of the Cambridge Pre-U. As the first gateway of diplomas get off to a shaky start across a range of comprehensive schools and further education colleges, September 2008 saw the launch of first Pre-U’s in 50 schools mostly in the Independent sector including Eton and Winchester (Guardian 11/11/08). In contrast to the modular AS-A2 system used at A-level, the Pre-U returns to the more traditional linear approach. With assessment of AS-A2 now increasingly ‘task based’,  Pre-U’s creators want to restore the importance of essay writing and the end of course final examination. To gain the full Pre-U, students take three Principal subjects, but also complete a research project and a ‘Global Perspectives’ portfolio. Cambridge claim it will be ‘exciting to teach’ and develop ‘an independent and self-directed style and ensure academic integrity.

According to its advocates, Pre-U will offer pupils more stimulation and a system of assessment that rewards creativity and lateral thinking. A-levels, they complain, only teach students to ‘think inside a very small box’ and discriminate against ‘highly imaginative students’, whose answers may even be marked down because they are considered too sophisticated. According to Tony Little, Headmaster of Eton, (Times. 20/11/2006) ‘Pre-U will offer pupils more stimulation and a system of testing that rewards creativity and lateral thinking. A-levels, he complains, only teach students to ‘think inside a very small box’ and discriminate against ‘highly imaginative students’, whose answers were often marked down because they are considered too sophisticated. ‘We want the best courses that challenge our students’. In the same article Graham Able, Head of Dulwich College, suggests the Pre-U represents   a return to the original idea of A-level as a qualification for university entry.   

 

 

Pedagogy or position? 

 

Many secondary and sixth-form college teachers may have some sympathy with the accusations that A-levels have been ‘dumbed down’, that there is too much assessment and that it is unnecessary to have AS and A2 divisions, but it isn’t surprising if these arguments may appear attractive at a time when school teachers, are bombarded with targets and lamenting the loss of much of their professional autonomy, over how they teach.

 

There are other reasons however for Pre-U’s emergence. Being primarily designed for high-performing students, many will consider the new qualification unashamedly elitist and – with A-level pass rates reaching 97% and with 1 in 4 candidates now receiving an A grade – that its main purpose is to ensure the leading and the most expensive schools can re-establish their ‘positional’   advantage.

 

Even if elite/private schools are responsible for a large proportion of the increases in grade A, they can no longer guarantee that their students will automatically be at the front of the queue for entry to top universities. As the Guardian (20/1/09) reported, comprehensive are closing the gap at B-D, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before they also increase their share of top grades[3]. Elite schools clearly don’t consider they can rely on the new A*grade due to become available from 2010.

 

Pre-U principal subjects will have 9 different grades. At the top, there will be D1 (distinction 1) D2 and D3. At least one school, Charterhouse (fees £26 000 per annum), has decided to offer the Pre-U in some individual subjects rather than as a diploma, thus creating a brand of ‘super A-levels’ .This will, as the Daily Telegraph (23/01/08) reassured its readers, mean that independent schools are ‘likely to tighten their grip on leading universities’.

 

Of course, as Cambridge make clear, there is nothing to stop state schools introducing the Pre-U particularly in individual subject areas where they may have expertise and particularly now that OCQ have given it official backing. 15 of  the schools teaching the new qualification from last September may be officially part of the state sector, but all but two are grammar schools and  one of the comprehensives in the initial cohort could be described as ‘unusual.’[4] CIE claims that 30 comprehensives will be part of the 2009 cohort (Guardian 11/11/08) however many comprehensive schools, struggle to provide a variety of A-level and vocational options and simply won’t have the resources to offer parallel courses in individual subjects.

 

 

A new upper track?

 

There have always been alternatives to A-level. For example the International Baccalaureate remains an established qualification, popular in International Schools but also attracting a small following in the state sector. Until this year at least,  government, as part of its drive to promote ‘diversity’ was committed to ensuring that the IB would be available in at least one school or college in every LEA area-earmarking £2.5 million. Now, with the emergence of the Pre-U, the further expansion of the IB is less certain. As well as being a more direct ‘national’ alternative to A-level, which according to Charterhouse has now ‘had its day’[5]; the Pre-U is also much easier to deliver than the ‘expensive’ IB (Bunnell, 2008)[6].

 

The Pre-U seeks to occupy the prime position in an increasingly complex landscape of post-16 certification. In an era of mass participation in HE, new types of correspondence may be evolving.  Pre-U aims to establish itself as a flagship qualification for entrance to ‘Ivy League’ Russell universities, leaving A-levels as a ‘middle’ qualification’ (maybe for ’middle’ universities?) and vocational /applied qualifications, including the new specialist diplomas for the ‘clearing’ (million +) universities.

 

 

 

What next?

 

 

A-levels may be very different to what they used to be, they are certainly more accessible, but there    is no definitive research evidence that they are necessarily getting easier. On the other hand one thing is certain; as performance levels rise young people have to work harder simply to stand still and the current generation of sixth formers are les or more able, they are certainly the most prepared and the  most coached in exam techniques.

 

 Rather than becoming embroiled in circular arguments about the merits of certain types of learning we need a comprehensive approach to the post-16 curriculum which includes them all. This will not ‘dumb down’ standards, but if organised properly and accompanied by serious measures to reverse the government’s ‘choice and diversity’ agenda, could at least start to  ‘level up’ different types of learning and make them more challenging and more exciting. In this respect, the multi-level general diploma blueprint, developed by the National Union of Teachers[7], continues to point the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 *  A shorter version of this appeared in The Teacher Secondary and Sixth Form Supplement Sept 2008

 

Notes

[1] See the DCSF’s   2008 Promoting achievement, raising success: a strategy for 14-19 qualifications   which confirmed press announcements earlier in the year. 

[2] ‘Never had  an  examination so widely criticised been so long retained…Elite criticism of the comprehensive  idea forced comprehensive schools to collude with the system because A-levels were  one way in which they could establish their own credibility.’ Caroline Benn and Clyde Chitty (1996) Thirty Years On; Is Comprehensive Education Alive and Well or Struggling to Survive?   Fulton  ( p349,)

[3] Dumbing down disguise- Tom Clark and Polly Curtis accuse the exam boards of   withholding these figures to refute claims that the exams are getting easier.

 

[4] See Fran Adam’s references to Coloma Girls Convent School ‘Anyone for Stretching?’  Guardian Nov 11, 2008. The other ‘comprehensive’ is Wimbledon College a  Catholic/Jesuit boys school. 

 

[5] Daily Telegraph 24/01/09

 

[6] For a comprehensive review of the growth and contradictions behind the IB  see

Bunnell, T (2008)   The International Baccalaureate in England and Wales: the alternative paths for the future.  Curriculum Journal Vol 19. No 3 Sept 2008.

 

[7] National Union of Teachers (2005) Bringing down the barriers to 14-19 education.

---

MERDS paper Institute of Education 07/02/09

    

                                                                                                                               From jobs without education to education without jobs. Education, economy and young people  and society -an overview

Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley

 

Summary

Though many Marxist writers continue to theorise the relationship between education and the workplace ‘needs’ of capital, we have argued in Education make you fick, innit?  that the main function of any ‘correspondence’ between education and capitalism is that of ‘social control’ – particularly in the context of the recomposition of class and the changing relationship between youth and employment.

We  now argue that we may be entering a new period of crisis where a generation of ‘overschooled’  (but  ‘undereducated’)  young people begin to question whether remaining in education for an extended period will enable them to secure comparable employment. As a result the education system may increasingly experience a ‘crisis of  legitimacy’,  a crisis compounded by growing inequalities post -14 and in higher education. 

Such a situation while posing great dangers to the future of education also provides new opportunities for practitioners who want to change  how schools, colleges and universities operate to work with students to develop far reaching alternatives

 

For a copy of the full paper  -  email  PAPER  to  mar.all@btinternet.com  

 

Diplomas offer scant hope of ending great divide

 

Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley

The Guardian    18/10/08           http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/28/diplomas

Responses to Cambridge Exams Pre-U

                                                                                             

 

Martin Allen,  letter, The Guardian  23/07/08

 

The real issue for Greg Watson (Cambridge exam chief…Guardian 22/07 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jul/22/alevels.gcses) is that too many young people are now passing A-levels, a qualification originally designed for the elite few. Faced with the demands of Government’s ’standards agenda’, teachers increasingly ‘teach to test’, but it is also the case that youngsters, with traditional employment opportunities disappearing and recognising that vocational qualifications lack status, consider A-level to be the only route with currency.

Introducing the Pre-U, will only reinforce a new upper stream,  mainly Independent schools, feeding directly to Russell universities.We do need to change the examination system, but not this way

 

 

 

 

Martin Allen  and Patrick Ainley,  letter  The Guardian 18/06/08

 

Mike Baker raises some important points about A-levels

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2285812,12.00.html

While it’s true that only a minority gain three grade As, the general rise in standards at A-level is to be welcomed, though it reflects a situation where more and more young people feel they have to “go to uni or die” to secure employment and avoid McJobs.

 

 

However, the invention of the A* is a desperate attempt by the government to ensure the A-level continues as the main currency for admission to university. It may already be too late as, in addition to preparing their students for the increasing array of individual university entrance exams, many of the leading independent schools are signing up for the Cambridge Pre-U.

 

 

Welcomed by elite universities, this new qualification returns to the original two-year linear A-level designed for 5% of higher education entrants in 1951. The Pre-U will guarantee what private school parents are paying for: entry to elite universities. With variable fees in 2010, income rather than academic performance will then be key to selection.

 

We should campaign for a comprehensive higher education. Rather than rearranging the A-level deck-chairs, we also need a mandatory general diploma for everybody 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why we need a general diploma accessible to all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley

 

The Guardian 15/04/08

 

 

The government’s new strategy for 14-19 follows the peak in numbers of 18-year-olds entering higher education (42.5% in 2005-06), along with those achieving two A-levels (34% in 2006).

 

Although more than 80% remain in full-time education for a year after the compulsory school-leaving age, increased participation has been accompanied by increased division. The upper years of secondary education replicate past divisions as tripartism is reinstated at tertiary level. It is in this context that the government has launched its specialist diplomas in five vocational areas from September and in 17 “lines” to which all 14- to 16-year-olds will be entitled by 2013.

 

The academic-vocational divisions in many secondary schools will be intensified by further divisions between schools and also between schools and the FE colleges that are likely to be the main diploma providers in local consortia. About 100,000 14- to 16-year-olds currently attend FE colleges for part of the week but if, as the government wants, up to 40% of the cohort follow them on the diploma, colleges could become the new tertiary moderns.

 

For, despite government claims that nearly 80% of schools have signed up for a local diploma consortium and that 140,000 places will be available from September 2009, closer inspection suggests the actual numbers will be well short. The strategy document therefore announces diplomas in more academic subjects and a new “extended” diploma supposedly worth four A-levels. It hints also that all current standalone vocational qualifications like BTecs will be absorbed into diplomas.

 

Diplomas replace applied A-levels, which thus join a long line of failed vocational qualifications supposedly promoting new workplace skills and designed to motivate the “non-academic”.

 

Having conceded that the diplomas are not really directly vocational but more “applied”the government seeks to revamp the faltering modern apprenticeship as a work-based alternative. But many private-sector employers do not need them, and modern apprentices only receive an “allowance” and no guarantee of a job.

 

 Meanwhile, students continue to flock to A-levels as the only reliable route to HE. But for private schools and the elite universities they supply, A-levels are no longer the gold standard. They prefer the new Cambridge Pre-U qualification. The Pre-U is unashamedly elitist, designed to re-establish the exclusivity of top schools while leaving A-levels – to which there are 800,000-plus entries each year – to the masses. And the 14-19 strategy announces that it will no longer support the international baccalaureate as an alternative to the Pre-U in all local authorities.                                                               

 

If private provision crams pupils for the Pre-U and other elite university entry exams, A-levels should secure entry to the next tier down of campus-based teaching universities, while diplomas may serve for the million-plus group of former polytechnics. Raised fees in 2010 will heighten these divisions by subject and institution. 

 

Rather than trying to resurrect Tomlinson’s “overarching” certificate, which Labour rejected in 2006, by “Tomlinsonising” the diplomas, a new multi-level general diploma accessible to all students is needed. Such a qualification must safeguard the right to a common core curriculum, while at the same time enabling genuine specialisation. It should also be binding on all institutions, including the private ones; otherwise diversity and division can only widen. To ensure this would require renegotiation of the current relationship between central government and schools, limiting school autonomy.

     

                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cruellest con of all

     

 

Patrick Ainley 

 

Times Higher Education Supplement  07/02/08

 

 

 

Widening participation is a cruel con but the people academics fool the most with it are themselves.  The government target of 50 per cent of 18-30 year-olds entering higher education by 2010 presents itself as a professionalisation of the proletariat but it disguises a proletarianisation of the professions.  Not only the academic profession but the professions which many graduates will enter – if they are lucky. 

 

                                                                                                          

Occupations of all sorts now calling themselves professional (not merely in the sense of doing a good job and being full-time as opposed to amateur, like footballers or criminals) have expanded with the decline of industrial labour and the expansion of service and office employment, especially for women.  These occupations have also professionalized themselves by their association with higher education.  Teachers were a case in point, moving from the teacher training colleges to Departments of Education in universities.  Now teacher education, as it briefly became, has once again reverted to teacher training in competences dictated by the central government Training and Development Agency, even though still nominally within higher education. 

 

                                                                                  

Widening participation on a reduced unit of resource was also a recipe for turning higher into further education.  Without the extra support necessary for ‘non-traditional’ students, ie. those without the top A-level grades guaranteeing their preparedness for traditional HE, it is impossible for them to reach the standards of academic literacy and numeracy demanded by the unchanged HE that lecturers persist in inflicting on the new mass of students. 

 

 

Meanwhile, the selecting elite have used widening participation to cream ‘bright working-class’ applicants in the way the grammars used to do.  As has been pointed out many times, this only makes the situation worse for the rest of us. Academics have only themselves to blame for this.  Partly we were arrogant in thinking that what we had to teach was what everyone else wanted and needed to know.  We did not recognise that knowledge is not power and that most of our students are not in the personal, social or economic situation to be empowered by it.  Partly we were stupid in not seeing that our eagerness to enlighten the masses entailed levels of support that are unavailable to us.  

 

 

Worse, since the polytechnics – as Tyrrell Burgess wittily said at the time – were allowed to become universities to disguise the fact many universities had become polytechnics, there is now no surviving alterative to academic HE.  Instead, all new and old universities compete on the uneven playing field of a traditional curriculum. 

 

 

When academics belatedly realise that ‘more means different’, our only option is to ‘dumb down’ towards competence-based programmes like many of the two-year Foundation ‘degrees’. 

 

 

This is the likely future for the vocational diplomas and apprenticeships government is conjuring up.  Since no schools want to run the dips and employers aren’t going to pay for them, they will predictably be picked up by desperate FE and then passed on as F‘d’s to what are becoming the training universities. 

 

 

 

Here comes the ‘Burgerluarette’ !

 

Martin Allen

 Campaign Teacher Spring 2008

 

News that McDonalds are offering  employees a  ‘training’ equivalent to A-levels  got its fair share of media attention at the end of January, particularly when it became known that QCA was recognising it – along with courses from two other major companies, the airline Flybe and Network Rail.

 

From January 2008, McDonald’s will pilot what it is calling a basic shift manager’s course. The course will cover everything the 7,000 managers of McDonald’s outlets across the country need to know about the day-to-day running of a restaurant. This ranges from basic operational requirements, to finances, marketing and human resources. Learning on this course will be divided up into credits. The standard of these credits will equate with GCSE grades, A-levels or a national Diploma. 

 

Though an employee will not be completing a full A-level equivalent, only part of one, when 17 year olds are legally required to participate in education and training from 2013, a ‘Mcqualification’ will probably suffice (the fast food giant could design a course which was equal to a whole A-level). Gordon Brown quickly gave support, while skills minister  John Denham said it was an important step towards ending the old divisions between company training schemes and national qualifications.

 

Criticising McDonalds is not an example of ‘academic snobbery’ towards practical/vocation learning as some daily newspapers implied.  In  an increasingly uncertain labour market, most teachers would welcome government backing for good quality vocational training delivered by  reputable employers preferably in collaboration with FE colleges, but many will be bewildered if not appalled at why this has been extended to the fast food chain. 

 

 

McDonalds have been exploiting youngsters  from the earliest opportunity, not just with the ‘Mcfood’ they sell to thousands everyday, but also through  ‘Mcjobs’ fitted around school and college hours and which any self respecting teenager seeking to earn a bit of cash will tell you, are the lowest of the low. Promoting ’Mclearning’ is the latest attempt at extending  ‘McDonaldisation’ into the lives of kids and young people. 

 

 

QCA support  for McDonalds is particularly nauseating, considering the Government’s own vocational diplomas have been plagued with problems, not winning support from parents, headteachers or universities and when many Modern Apprenticeship schemes continue to flounder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crisis of childhood. A critique of the Children’s Plan

 

 

 

Richard Murgatroyd and Martin Allen    Morning Star  04/01/08

 

New Labour’s recently published Children’s Plan sets itself the modest target of making Britain the “best place in the world to grow up.” Unfortunately, the mixture of good intentions, technocratic changes and small-scale reforms on offer don’t add up to sort of radical vision that is needed to tackle the growing crisis of childhood. But a little caution is needed before the left throws this particular baby out with the bath water.

 

For, whatever its other shortcomings, the plan does at least identify the real issues that are blighting the lives of so many children in the real world – child poverty, the commercialisation of childhood, the near-replacement of independent outside play with indoor screen-based entertainment, fatty foods and childhood obesity. Hidden away in chapter 3 is also the first real indication that the current version of scholastic aptitude tests (SATs) might be replaced by a more personalised “test when ready” approach, even if this does not guarantee that comparative school performance tables will necessarily disappear. The plan’s proposals are also wide-ranging and include many things that reformers would want to support, such as more and better playgrounds, youth clubs, the integration of children’s services and more effective use of school resources in the community.

 

Children spend only one-sixth of their waking hours at school, so it is perhaps surprising that so much of the plan focuses on education. The reality is that the plan has been published at a time of increased concern that the school “standards agenda,” which is still a major cornerstone of government policy, is running out of steam, the education system is not quite as “world class” as it should be and that there appears little chance of reaching the 90 per cent A-C GCSE target by 2020. In many respects, the plan is largely an extension of the standards agenda. If things were not going wrong for Labour with schools, it’s questionable whether it would have even reached print. For example, a whole chapter is devoted to the government’s proposals for “staying on” in education, such as raising of the leaving age and creating new vocational diplomas. It also reiterates that every secondary school should have specialist, trust or academy status and a business or university partner.

 

Libertarians from both the left and the right might fear a further extension of the “surveillance culture” that is creeping into more areas of family and personal life, but the plan is careful in its language and its tone and designed to be supportive rather than coercive, while many of the proposals are too shallow and far too limited to represent anything Big Brother-like. Pointing the finger at schools and teachers is another matter. The plan continues to do its fair share of this – “weak and failing” teachers are criticised, schools are set a minimum standard of 30 per cent of students attaining five A-C GCSEs and, in future, all teachers are to be expected to gain masters degrees. Labour strategists, however, understand that blaming parents, who are ever more financially overstretched despite working longer and working harder, could spell electoral catastrophe.

 

The only section of parents directly addressed by the plan are from “disadvantaged” areas. These will receive expert parenting advice, encouragement to access Sure Start and 20,000 subsidised places in nurseries for up to 15 hours a week.

 

 

A disappointing number of the commitments contained in the Children’s Plan are either too small-scale to make a difference or are unlikely to be adequately funded. Some spending commitments are paltry, the largest being £220 million on playgrounds over the next three years. Most kids would soon be able to calculate that the yearly spending increases are unlikely to be more than their monthly pocket money when divided by the total number of children in the population.This last point is going to become ever more relevant as Brown’s bubble economy deflates over the next few years, squeezing public-sector resources. Perhaps that explains the emphasis on information and consultation, with new parenting advisers, personal progress records and new focus groups called “parents’ panels.”

 

 

However, other key proposals need to be carefully considered. While reformers have rightly sought to extend subsidised nursery places as a means of liberating women and teaching co-operative and communal values to the young, the plan clearly envisages more target-based, formalistic and standardised early years provision. This raises the question, is it really a good idea to ratchet down the sorts of prescriptive regimes to ever younger children?

 

 

Some commentators on the plan have also noted that many action points only involve publishing and commissioning further reviews and reports, the most important of which will look at the commercialisation of childhood and on the risks of video and internet games. There is also a lot of technocratic tweaking and rearranging of departmental deckchairs on offer, but these sorts of organisational solutions will not transform those aspects of everyday life in advanced consumer capitalist societies that are fuelling the crisis of childhood. And this perhaps brings us to the real empty hole in the plan – the lack of any clear vision. For there is nothing at all to suggest that the government is ready to start questioning the free-market dogma that has helped fuel the crisis of childhood. Instead, the plan continues to parrot the increasingly empty claim that unlimited opportunities and personal fulfilment are available to all in a globalised economy.

                                                                                                

Nevertheless, the publication of the first ever Children’s Plan will hopefully encourage wider discussion and debate among socialists and radicals about the condition of our young people. The left urgently needs to sharpen up its thinking about contemporary childhood. That calls for some honest discussion about the relationship between young people and their parents or carers. About the ways in which young people are being encouraged to think and act. About the limits of the education system in a society like this. About the ways in which parents may be able to reclaim the spaces in our children’s lives that have been colonised by commercialism, consumerism and the state, but also about the way in which the “workaholic” culture inhabited by many parents actually props up the sort of economy that new Labour says that it wants to protect children against.

 

Above all, the left needs to ask more searching questions about the way in which our young people are being prepared to respond politically to the economic and environmental crisis that they are likely to experience later in their lives. If youth is the future, what next?