The real education scandal

Another year, another set of record results, and another set of angry columnists, this time focusing their anger on the new A* grade. Exams are, according to the press, “too easy,” “grade-inflated,” or “too stressful.”

Yet there is silence on the real scandal, which is the content of courses and their teaching. (See also Judith Judd's "Primary cause for concern" in this month's Prospect). Nostalgic appeals to the “good old days” will of course get us nowhere. However, a genuinely beneficial education demands time for reflective thought, a breadth and depth of knowledge, and the opportunity to discuss and debate both on paper and out loud. Sadly, these skills are increasingly being given only to those who have the money for the private sector, or who can move to the areas with the few good state schools. My experience, and that of my peers, is that too many teachers are worried about hitting attainment targets and lesson objectives and thus do not teach concepts to the depth that is needed, but rather concentrate on simply training pupils, like prize dogs, how to navigate the assault course of exams. The result is predictably depressing. Students gain an A* in history A-level yet have no opinion of whether Stalin or Hitler was the real villain of the 20th century. Students of Paradise Lost have no idea why Satan is far more appealing than God, yet all have written it in their English A grade paper simply because they are told to do so.

Yet another tragedy is that the state school system fails to impart another key feature of education: intellectual confidence. Too often are the (regrettably few) intellectual debates among young people won by the private school kid, not because he has more knowledge, but simply because his well-schooled arrogance either flattens his opponent, or allows him to get away with made up facts and statistics.

The infiltration of new Labour’s instrumentalist agenda of environmentalist and multiculturalist politics into education has been yet another fatal turn. Instead of broadening intellectual horizons, teachers are bogged down by the demands of useless citizenship education and the need to meet “inclusivity targets” in case minorities (which the government believes to be wholly incapable) fall behind. And despite the way the right-wing press has stressed the argument to breaking point, health and safety legislation really does sap a teacher's will to organise anything outside—and, for science teachers, inside—the classroom.

The real failure of our education system has not been the thousands of students left without places. Although many good students have missed out on good university places, the majority of those without places are simply a reflection of an education system that fails to inspire young people, with the result that they fail exams. Nor is it the inability of A-levels to distinguish the best students, although that is one of the system's failings. No, the real failure is that our educational system does not lead to knowledgeable, confident and intellectually engaged young people.

It is easy to caricature my position as old-fashioned and conservative. But it's actually an Enlightenment idea: if reason and rationality are to banish ignorance and superstition, we need a generation of young people able to engage with, and value, ideas. The project of those who care about education must be to craft a new education system, not to belittle the young people who manage to get the most out of a broken one.

Thanks for the photo to Jack Hynes

Jacob Reynolds has just received his A-Level results for History, Politics, and Economics (A, A*, A*)