New ‘grammar school’ GCSEs can only short change young people – we need a general diploma for everyone

There are few surprises in the new GCSE exams that have now been officially unveiled by Ofqual. Coursework and modules – as well as the chance to resit parts of exams – have continually been cited by Michael Gove as reasons for the ‘dumbing down’ of standards, with the 2010 White Paper The Importance of Teaching, the 2012 consultation document Reforming Key Stage 4 and now Tuesday’s Commons statement by the Secretary of State effectively holding the exam system responsible for the UK economy’s ‘failure to compete’ with Pacific Rim countries!

This is either deluded, disingenuous or dishonest; for Gove must know that promising a ‘grammar school education for all’ is a contradiction in terms since only a minority can pass by definition. However, anyone who points this out is derided as ‘an enemy of promise’ or an academic ‘blob’ with no faith in the ability of all pupils to pass academic examinations specifically designed to fail most of them.

Teachers especially must be sick of hearing all this, bewildered but also increasingly resigned to having to prepare students to jump through a new set of hoops, recognising that for many of their students this has been made deliberately more difficult. Young people themselves, particularly those who are currently completing their GCSEs, will feel insulted and belittled that exams they have worked so hard for have effectively been declared unfit for purpose, as employment opportunities continue to disappear and £9000 a year university courses become essential for even ‘ordinary’ jobs.

Our book The Great Reversal has outlined the real reasons behind Gove’s exam offensive–the need to create a closer correspondence between education and an economy that has not provided the opportunities promised. Whereas in periods of relative economic prosperity and labour market expansion, all children can be encouraged to succeed, in a downturn, the opposite has to apply. Also, in seeking to revert to a minority higher education by reducing the numbers going to university via the specialist academic A-levels the GCSEs will link to, the Higher Education Minister, David Willetts, urgently needs to reduce the huge debts owed by students paying higher fees.

Instead, we need new policies in the interests of all young people. While these must go much further than the forlorn attempt at reforming education to restart social mobility and pretending we can educate our way out of recession, it is important that we put forward bold alternatives to the current GCSE changes. A ‘general diploma for everyone’ should be accessed by all to provide a mandatory entitlement to a range of learning and then progression to further, higher and adult continuing education and training.

Bringing together current academic and vocational qualifications could be a start to this process, although it would have to be the diploma as a whole that would be the main achievement. With the raising of the participation age to 18 in 2015 (17 this year), such a diploma, awarded at 18, with an intermediate level at 16, could also represent a stage in the transition to adulthood being linked to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. We don’t need a new sheep and goats test at 16 to impress the majority with a sense of their own failure.

These are dismal times for education – to reclaim the agenda, we need new ideas.

I.09 million NEETS

This month’s ONS figures based on Jan-March data showed total unemployment at 2,518,000; up 15,000 on the previous quarter –a rate of 7.8% and up 0.1 percentage points on last quarter. Youth unemployment stood at 958,000 down 17,000 in the quarter. At 20.7%, it was also down 0.1 percentage points.

In themselves though, these figures only provide a partial view of the state of the youth labour market. In accordance with international guidelines, unemployment rates are calculated as the number of unemployed people divided by the economically active population (In the case of young people this is made up of those in employment, those who are unemployed, but also students ‘looking for work’).

A more significant indicator   is the 1.09 million young people that ONS classified as ‘NEET’ (Not in Education, Employment or Training) 15.1% of all young people and 17.6% of all 18-24 year olds.  This was up 21,000 from October to December 2012, though down 101,000 from a year earlier –when there were 50 000 more young people recorded as full-time students.

ONS figures also showed 3.67 million 16 to 24 year olds in employment, down 46,000 from October to December 2012, while there were 27,000 more students. Increasing numbers of young people going into full-time education reduces the size of the economically active population and in statistical terms increases the rate of unemployment. In total there were 2.60 million economically inactive 16 to 24 year olds (73% of whom were in full-time education) up 48,000 from October to December 2012.

COMPASS TO A HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM

Paper to Student Experience Network  Sheffield Hallam 17/05/13

Patrick Ainley

This paper begins by asking what is ‘higher’ about the education we claim to be giving our students and goes on to briefly examine alternatives to the traditional academic answer to this question, drawing upon the polytechnic tradition to suggest combining higher with further education and upon the precedent of Independent Study to argue that elements of IS in all undergraduate programmes afford a means for students to make sense of their study and for staff to relate to them in a process of continuing dialogue.

http://www.srhe.ac.uk/downloads/events/91_TransitionPaper.doc

‘Overqualified and underemployed’

Martin Allen

A recent  International Labour Organisation report shows 73.4 million young people (12.6 %) expected to be out of work worldwide in 2013, an increase of 3.5 million between 2007 and 2013 and youth three times as likely to be unemployed than adults.

Now reaching unprecedented levels in Greece 64% and Portugal 43%, youth joblessness has increased by almost 25% in the European Union between 2008 and 2012, reaching  a decade‐long high of 18.1% in 2012. In the OECD countries, one in six young people are also classified as NEET –without a job and not in education or training. The increase in youth unemployment is also reflected in its duration. In OECD countries, more than one‐third of unemployed youth had been unemployed for at least six months in 2011.

The ILO claims  that the long-term impact of the youth employment crisis could be felt for decades and that more and more young people are now withdrawing  from the labour market by giving up the search for work – resulting in long term scarring, but also increasing distrust in socio‐economic and political systems.

The ILO report also highlights an increasing mismatch between qualifications held by young people and the jobs available – a point we highlight in The Great Reversal . This reflects the increased competition for jobs, more than it reflects any lack of skill.

‘Evidence from advanced economies shows that young people (aged 15–29) are far more exposed to overeducation than workers aged 30 and above, and are also less likely to be undereducated. Overeducation of youth in advanced economies increased by 1.5 percentage points in the period 2002 to 2010, reflecting in part increases in educational attainment. However, the strong increase in overeducation in the past two years (by 1.4 percentage points) suggests another consequence of the economic crisis: youth with higher levels of education are increasingly taking up jobs that they are overqualified to do. The growing phenomenon of overeducation therefore implies a crowding out of youth at the bottom of the educational pyramid.  The less‐educated youth find themselves at the back of the queue even for those jobs for which they are best qualified’ (p8).

Although, as the ILO report recognises that ‘undereducation’ – a lack of educational qualifications and opportunities – still inhibits young people in many developing economies where there is still a tendency to leave school early: ‘Labour markets for young people in developing economies are very different from those in developed economies’ (p9).

As we argue in The Great Reversal, this does not mean that we shouldn’t try to reform and improve education or that we should not encourage young people to remain in full-time learning, but it does mean that we can’t educate our way out of recession and need specific employment policies for young people within a more general ‘plan B+’ for economic regeneration.

Download   the ILO report   http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/global-employment-trends/youth/2013/lang–en/index.htm

As applications rise, university chiefs call for quicker loan repayments

The latest UCAS  figures show a 3.5% increase in the number applying for 2013 full-time undergraduate entry to UK universities – though the figure is still down on 2011, the year before the £9000 tuition fee kicked in. Applications from 18 year olds are also up 2% and for 19 year olds 10.5%. (www.ucas.ac.uk/about_us/media_enquiries/media_releases/2013/20130130c)

As Treasury officials become increasingly concerned about the unsustainability of the higher education bubble   (www.radicaled.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/as-the-treasury-recognises-its-financially-unsustainable-will-the-university-tuition-fees-bubble-burst/)   some Russell  university chiefs are now reported to be lobbying for a lower income repayment threshold (www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/may/06/student-loans-repayment-level-lowered)   hoping that this will reduce the total number of applicants and free up more government funding for their own institutions, which are also demanding an even larger share of research funding.

With a glut of graduates meaning that the majority of employers now expect applicants to have a degree, combined with a lack of confidence over whether new ‘apprenticeships’ will lead to real jobs, the UCAS  figures also show that those from ‘disadvantaged’ areas continue to apply (although women from these areas are 50% more likely to apply than men). So, even cutting the repayment threshold to £18000 as suggested, might not be enough to trigger the Great Reversal in university numbers that David Willetts and Michael Gove really want.

Review: The Great University Gamble

Andrew  McGettigan   The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education,  Pluto Press, London, 2013. 240pp., £16.99 pb  ISBN 9780745332932

Reviewed by Patrick Ainley              http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2013/744

Perhaps this book will at last get academic Marxists to apply their scholarship to (higher) education. It is ‘pitched at a general readership’ (ix) but this ‘tour through the backrooms of higher education policy’ (185) aims to provide ‘a primer on how money is moving in new ways through the system’ focused on ‘the political economy of institutions in this new environment’ (11).

It follows the stages by which the state prepared for new speculative investment in higher education by private venture capital and other forms of finance capital: from ‘marketisation’ under New Labour, through ‘privatisation’ with the imminent entry of (many more) companies remunerating the investments of their shareholders, alongside banks, hedge funds and bond holders etc., to projected ‘financialisation’, defined as ‘how a public good is placed within a system of accounts via the novel use of data, accounting techniques and political disciplining’ (175).

The end result is a rabid extension of the new state form in which responsibility for delivery is contracted out to agents (schools, colleges and universities, in this case) run to targets, while power to set and inspect the targets contracts to the centre. Simultaneously, a new mixed economy, introduced with the privatization of nationalized industry in the 1980s, mingles the semi-privatised state sector of former public services indiscriminately with a state-subsidised private sector. The state contracts to the minimum function of broker between finance and privatised provision for consumers not citizens.

In HE, new private providers and established charitable institutions changing their corporate forms could ‘extract value’ (i.e. make a profit) from larger numbers of trainee and student consumers if the associated risks could be managed. Tim Leunig, currently seconded from LSE to advise Michael Gove, is cross-referencing UCAS records with data the Student Loans Company (suspended from sale in 2009) receives from HM Revenue and Customs, so that different degrees can be matched for cost against long-run earnings. Unlike a graduate tax, this would create a differentiated market in which students/graduates would be the unit of account. ‘Each year’s new loans could be sold to a “special purpose vehicle” which could slice or segment the loan book into marketable products for investors.’ (182)

This leads to a bizarre world, operating 30 years in the future, when the government expects two thirds of the current crop of student loans to be recovered – abandoning the other third! (£3.3b of an annual outlay projected by Willetts for 2014/15 at £14b of which £10b is loans for fees and maintenance.) This ‘gamble involves running the risk of sub-prime degrees’ (185) but if, on the other hand, ‘student numbers decline so that fewer loans are issued there would be a substantial saving’ (171). For True Believers in ‘choice and competition’ like Willetts and Gove, whichever or whatever result is the Will of the Market.

For England’s universities this is ‘a huge gamble… not a controlled experiment.’ (6) ‘The gamble is that the creative destruction of mass higher education as currently provided will be worth it in the longer run.’ (185) The results are nevertheless predictable: ‘we should expect a diminution in the number of universities in England, whether through merger or collapse, and prospective students are likely to soon face less choice as to where and what they study.’ (6) English higher education is ‘on the cusp of a transformation’ akin to the country’s football 20 years ago ‘when the breakaway Premier League and Sky TV money combined with the regulatory arbitrage of corporate restructuring to reroute the financial circuits of the game’ and ‘a new elite cemented its position … while the majority of institutions will be left to scrap in a new market swamped with cheap degree providers’ (ix).

What is to be done about this? ‘In the short-term, political activity and organization needs to be reactive, preventing the unfettered advent of any primary legislation’ (since the whole White Paper has been winged through on the hoof). ‘Any worthwhile alternative also involves a longer range struggle: one that makes the case and fights for mass higher education not as “value for money” but as a quality commitment to the population defined as whoever can benefit. It argues for a breadth of provision both in terms of subjects offered but also in terms of the content of those subjects, contesting the demand-led homogenization of education and maintaining critical and advanced content… We must seek more participative provision, structures and institutions.’ (186-7)

Apart from in the feudal guilds of Oxbridge scholars, the pass has too often been sold. Barely mentioned in the White Paper, academics, squeezed between the demands of student-consumers and pressures from management, have ‘failed to properly defend their profession… Collegiality has been displaced by corporatism.’ Worse, universities and colleges face a loss of public support ‘in so far as commercial imperatives and market positioning are seen to dovetail with the government’s agenda of polarization, stratification and the sorting of individuals.’ The ‘endemic resentments that befoul education’ through its implication in the reproduction of privilege ‘threaten to erupt under these pressures.’ (ibid)

McGettigan looks to the university governance structures proposed by von Prondzynski in Scotland for some safeguard against the depredations he delineates. He does not cover research, which is already playing a large part as some universities serve ‘the knowledge economy’ through growing medico-industrial complexes. Nor does he consider the increasingly alienated student experience in which, to adapt the 1844 Manuscripts, learning is ‘external to the learner’ and not freely undertaken so that the learner does not ‘affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind… Such learning does not satisfy a need: it is coerced, forced, and a means to satisfy needs external to it… It is a loss of self.’

The ‘Lost Generations’ of current and future students need a guide to explain what is occurring. Marxist academics can contribute to McGettigan’s ground-breaking analysis as well as to the resistance to its consequences.

30 April 2013

The Curriculum Great Reversal

Kingston University Seminar (01.05.13)

Martin Allen

Michael Gove’s National Curriculum proposals have been out for consultation and have  received a fair share of attention.  While there has been particular controversy over proposals for history and English, this short paper provides an ‘overview’ –a more general critique of the underlying principles behind the Gove curriculum.

To begin with, somewhat ironically, Gove sets himself up as a ‘moderniser’ claiming to be bringing learning in line with practices in countries at the cutting edge of the global economy –particularly those on the Pacific Rim, like Singapore and South Korea.  At best, this approach is inconsistent  (Morris 2012) and based on inaccurate data  (Wilby, Guardian 08/12/2012). It has also been  politically selective – though referred to in the 2010 Importance of Teaching White Paper for example, Finland, with high performing schools; but low-key approaches to testing and performance date has increasingly been dropped from the list from which examples are drawn. It is evident also that these ‘successful’ systems are also looking to learn from Britain and other countries (Allen and Ainley 2013).

More significant are the arguments about the need to return to a more ‘knowledge based’ rather than the ‘skills’ or ‘process’ led curriculum. This was something emphasised in the 2011 Experts Report commissioned by Gove,  however  the need to ‘bring knowledge back in’ has also been endorsed by one time curriculum radicals like Michael Young (Young 2008),  associated with the ‘social constructionist ’curriculum in the 1970s (Young 1971) and   by no means a supporter of the Coalition. Gove himself has been influenced particularly by ED Hirsch, an 85 year old US English Literature professor. Hirsch argues that an  enquiry based and student centred curriculum denies poorer children the ‘core knowledge’ necessary to get on in society (an inversion of Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’ argument?). Attacking New Labour’s ‘dumbed down’ curriculum, Gove argues that by reinstalling the importance of ‘hard facts’, social mobility will be restarted and opportunities increased.

These arguments are being used to narrow and to emphasize particular approaches to learning however. For example, phonics and reading tests for young children in primary schools and requirements that children concentrate on memorising tables or particular types of mathematical calculations at the expense of other numeracy skills.  There is also a return to a ‘cultural restorationist’ emphasis (Jones 1989) a ‘Kings and Queens’ history curriculum and an  obsession with particular literary texts rather than others.  Rather than encouraging the ‘diversity and responsible citizenship’ emphasized in the Experts Report, Gove wants to restore traditional curriculum hierarchies at the expense of newer subjects, effectively returning to a grammar school curriculum for secondary students (Allen 2012).

In our book, The Great Reversal, Patrick Ainley and myself argue that rather than being something that promotes and improves individual aspiration and social mobility Gove’s curriculum  proposals are part of a wider programme of reversing progressive reform in education and a way of re-establishing education as a form of social control.  It was the expanding economy of the post-war period that allowed working class children to move up, not the grammar schools or having access to ‘core knowledge’. In the book we argue that on the contrary, in a ‘declining economy’ social mobility has gone into reverse. It can’t simply be restarted by making changes to education.

We use Gove’s proposals for the Ebacc  as an example of this. Even if the proposed new  EBCs have been rescinded,  we argue the proposals set out a new approach to learning and assessment and that this has been continued in the new style GCSEs Gove will  introduce instead. Rather than needing to restore ‘rigour’ to these examinations, Gove’s real problem is that too many students are passing. He wants to create a new ‘correspondence’ between education and an economy with decreasing labour market opportunities.

The National Curriculum debate however has been given another twist by statements from Schools Minister Elizabeth Truss that the Coalition plans to allow all schools to ‘disapply’ the National Curriculum for a year (18/03/12 speech on DfE website)  though Academies  and Free Schools are not legally bound by it anyway.   In many respects, a centrally imposed curriculum does not fit well with Tory arguments about reducing the role of the state.  Tensions between traditional ‘cultural restorations’ and free market libertarians were visible in the 1980s when the NC was first introduced by Kenneth (now Lord) Baker (Jones, 1989 ). The ten subject Baker curriculum was also quickly trimmed at key stage 4 when the Dearing Review recommended the introduction of vocational pathways for ‘non-academic students’.

These tensions should not be over emphasised though and it is unlikely that disapplication will happen this way. The TES (29/6/12) argued that Gove wants to end central government power over what is taught in secondaries.  This is in many ways a caricature, because the new league table requirements for KS4 will effectively determine school curriculum provision. Though officially discarding the EBC; future league tables will include school performance in three of the Ebacc subjects in addition to English and maths.

Opposition to the Gove curriculum intensifies.

As argued, the Gove proposals represent a step back in time. They will not allow teachers the freedom promised in the 2010 White Paper, while the themes and organising principles are not educationally sound and do not  provide children and young people with the skills they need to cope with the challenges, but also the problems of the 21st century.  There is  growing opposition from teachers who have started campaigns, signed petitions and made their feelings known in surveys and opinion polls – ACSL General Secretary Brian Lightman has called for a second ‘Great Debate’ about education while ex QCA Boss Mick Walters looks forward to an ‘education spring’ (Guardian 23/04/13). Meanwhile the announcement of a ‘new’ Tech-bacc at post-16 shows a Secretary of State desperately running out of ideas? Critiquing Gove’s curriculum is one thing however. Developing real alternatives is quite another. This paper concludes by addressing some of the more general issues that need to be considered.

The curriculum and its social context

To begin with, because of the social significance of education as a whole, the curriculum cannot be reformed in isolation.   It goes without saying that reforming the curriculum depends on reforming assessment and the ‘accountability’ structures that have been imposed on schools –in  other words, curriculum reform will be extremely problematic  while ‘high stakes’ testing continues to exist. It is also the case that if particular subjects and qualifications are seen as having high labour market currency then they will be studied as much for instrumental reasons as for their educational merits. Anybody who has had experience of teaching or organising citizenship or other personal and social education programmes will be familiar with the problems of motivating students.  Attempts to reform the curriculum are also likely to counterproductive if a ‘free market’ model of education continues to dominate and programmes  to reduce inequalities between different types of learning will continue to fail unless they are made mandatory and subject combinations  constrained.

How do we bring teachers back in?

Teachers and the organisations that represent them, have rightly been concerned at the way in which they have been excluded from decisions about the content and the organisation of the curriculum. Opinion polls also show that teachers, rather than Michael Gove, continue to enjoy the respect of parents (http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/17949) . An alternative curriculum must have teachers as educational professionals at its fore, but this does not mean it is desirable to return to the ‘secret garden’ of the post-war years. The curriculum must be the product of discussions between a wide range of groups in society, in which teacher’s skills and expertise must be valued but not exclusively. Rather than the post-war model of professional autonomy, there has to be a more general democratic process through which curriculum issues are decided.

Does the curriculum have to consider the needs of employers and the economy?

Of course; but we do have to remember that employers have always criticised education and young people and often appear to be inconsistent in some of the things they say that they want. As argued above, Michael Gove’s attempt to justify importing certain ideas about learning from Asian Pacific countries is not a genuine one. Also, there’s now more concern  about whether the global economy is creating the highly skilled and highly paid jobs it is supposed to have been, or whether more young people are becoming ‘overqualified and unemployed’ (Allen and Ainley, 2013). There is a need for good basic and transferable skills, but it’s always been true that people continue to learn many occupational skills ‘on the job’.

While it is clearly the case that information technology has changed the nature of work and that more and more people are expected to be ICT literate, Gove’s reforms of the ICT curriculum and the inclusion of Computer Science as an Ebacc subject are not convincing. There’s also a  huge debate to be had about the role of ICT in learning and how, rather than ‘teacherless learning’ (Ainley and Allen, 2010 ) more collaborative practices can be developed between teachers and taught.

Towards a social justice curriculum.               

We have to use the space created by the Gove curriculum reforms to put forward some positive alternatives and welcome Lightman’s call for a ‘Great Debate’ We also have to return to a debate about what types of aims and values’ should guide the curriculum. The National Union of Teachers 2013 Conference called for an ‘alternative curriculum framework with social justice at its heart’. While the ability of education to create real social mobility in the labour market  can be questioned (Allen and Ainley, 2013) it will always be the case that education has the potential to broaden young people’s social awareness and encourage them to fully participate in society, rather than becoming a marginalised  or ‘lost generation’.

References

Allen, M. Ainley, P.  (2013)  The Great Reversal. Young People, Education and Employment in a Declining Economy.  London: Radicaled.

Ainley, P. Allen, M.  (2010)  Lost Generation?  New Strategies for Youth and Education London, Continuum.

Allen, M. (2012)   ‘Back to the Grammar School’  Education for Liberation  Issue 5, April 12

Department for Education (2011)  The Framework for the National Curriculum. A report by the Expert Panel

Department for Education (2010) White Paper  The Importance of Teaching

Jones, K. (1989)  Right Turn, London: Hutchinson.

Morris (2012)  Pick ‘n’ mix, select and project; policy borrowing and the quest for ‘world class’ schooling: an analysis of the 2010 schools White Paper  Journal of Education Policy  Vol 27.1

Young, MFD Ed (1971) Knowledge and Control. New Directions for the Sociology of Education, London: Collier Macmillan.

Young, M. (2008) Bringing Knowledge Back In, From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education, London: Routledge

As the Treasury recognises it’s ‘financially unsustainable’, will the university tuition fees ‘bubble’ burst?

 

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article1248867.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_04_20).

Estimates that 4 out of 10 student loans will never be repaid only confirms  The Great Reversal of education policy by Coalition education ministers Michael Gove and David Willetts.  The last thirty years have seen huge increases in participation in post compulsory education. Ironically some of the sharpest increases coming in the reactionary years of Mrs Thatcher’s governments –  staying on by 16 year olds increasing from 40% in 1980 and from 50% to 75% between 1985 and 1990. In the New Labour years that followed, applications for higher education increased from 450 000 to over 650 000

Expanding educational provision has continued to be justified in terms of new demands by international capital for a better educated workforce, a continuation of the education as  ‘human capital’  theme of the post-war years and exemplified best by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair’s promises  about globalisation  creating ‘more room at the top’. Like any other economic good, education was  reduced to commodity status.    Bought by the consumer to further their own advantage.

The reality has been rather different. Instead of up skilling and higher wages a period of ‘education without jobs’ and the emergence of a cohort of young people ‘overqualified and underemployed’ referred to in the media as a ‘lost generation.’ Thus arguments that the number of jobs in the UK requiring a degree has overtaken the number of jobs not needing any qualifications tell as more about the number of graduates available for hire as they do the changing technical requirements of particular jobs  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22268809.

The raising of university tuition fees to £9000 was supposed to  reduce student numbers – but in the absence of any real alternatives, despite government encouraging more young people to opt for ‘apprenticeships’, this has not happened to the extent that was predicted, with school and college leavers still opting for HE  www.radicaled.wordpress.com/category/higher-ed/.  It’s also the case that with the continued fall in graduate starting salaries and the general stagnation of incomes, many graduates (particularly those from non-elite universities) will barely reach the level  necessary to enable the full loan to be repaid.

Meanwhile, Michael Gove attempts to ratchet up opportunities for the ‘50%  not going to university’ by expropriating Ed Miliband’s Tech-Bacc, or at least its name – it will be largely a performance measure, a ‘mark of achievement’ rather than an actual award  www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/techbacc-alternative-to-alevels-to-be-unveiled-8582086.html 

Catering for the same students who would have been unlikely to have achieved the now discredited Ebacc and who would also have received a ‘Statement of (Non) Achievement’ it can never enjoy parity with A-level in the way that Gove insists. In fact it’s difficult to see how the thinking behind Gove’s latest initiative is any different from much of what’s come before, for example GNVQs accompanied by ‘key skills’ and then  the ill-fated Specialist Diplomas that included ‘functional skills’. Though level 3 vocational qualifications have continued to secure much higher labour market returns than the level 2 awards criticised in the Wolf Review, as more jobs become ‘graduatised’, those without degrees are bumped further down the jobs queue. Young people understand that while attending university still produces this type of premium then there’s no option but to apply.

(Not) going on a summer holiday?

Once again, Michael Gove is posing as the ‘moderniser’ .  He now wants to persuade us that we need to bring the length of  school  holidays in line with those in Asian Pacific economies like Singapore and Hong Kong. So as to ‘raise standard.

As argued in The Great Reversal,   Gove’s   attempt to cherry pick policies from elsewhere is highly selective and a little dishonest.   For example, high performing, but league table free Finland, a country that  after featuring in earlier policy statements has been gradually dropped as a blue print for reform,   has 11-week summer breaks.  Students and teachers  in neighbouring Sweden struggle along with just ten!

Most teachers would also welcome the relaxed atmosphere of Finland’s classrooms rather than the rote learning and fact regurgitation, not to mention the stress and parental obsession that is associated with school systems in many Asian Pacific countries.

There are many other reasons for the high growth rates in the Asian Pacific economies that have little to do with their education programmes – including differences in wage levels, employment laws and labour rights  for example.  In fact there is no conclusive evidence about what sort of education systems produce the most economic growth and development.

Getting back to the issue of holidays. Independent schools in England and Wales, which have longer summer holidays certainly don’t  feel the need to reduce them or increase  their hours for that matter,  while at Oxford and Cambridge universities, students attend for less than half the year. There’s a debate to be had about whether all school terms should be the same length and on how school buildings can be made more available for community activity during school holidays. But on this one,   Gove really takes the biscuit.

Martin Allen

Youth unemployment edges up

Today’s ONS figures show the number of people in work fell by 2,000 in the latest quarter to February, to just under 30 million –the first time the figure has dropped for well over a year.  With continued increases in the size of the labour force this has resulted in a 70000 increase in unemployment. 7.9% of the active population. ONS reports the number of underemployed workers – people who are in employment but want to work more hours – has risen by 980,000 since the start of the economic downturn in 2008 to stand at 3.05 million in 2012.

There are also 62 000 less 16-24 year olds in employment compared to the previous quarter  as youth unemployment  edges towards 1 million again after rising by 20 000 million –a second quarterly rise. More significantly, there has been a   37000 increase amongst young people not in full-time education.  Most of this increase has taken place in the 18-24 age group where almost a third continue to be full time students and  where amongst those  who are not;  15.6% are unemployed and a further 14.5% economically inactive.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Labour+Market