What Is Education For?

Back from holiday in a very civilised part of France, the Charentes Maritimes, to find that the LibDems in coalition have become everybody’s whipping boys. I guess the general message is there’s no gain without pain as I learnt when I was a member of Watford Harriers many years ago, and parts of me are still hurting (or is that simply old age?)

VAT rise - I think that was inevitable whoever had formed the government after the election. Is it regressive, strictly speaking, yes but the exempted items make it less so.

Public sector pay and pension freeze – again inevitable but if they think the private sector are going to be shamed into acting responsibly on the pay front, the Network Rail example simply proves that fat cats have no shame and that greed is a constant feature in human nature.

Do we really have any other choice but to grin and bear it? No we don’t, at least not until our sovereign debt has been reduced to an acceptable level and our banks re-discover the correct balance between prudence and risk.

The coalition, by moving to reduce corporation tax, has embarked on a risky strategy of relying on the private business sectors, both small and large, to pull the country back into growth and to expand employment. They think that the private sector is up to the task and will act collectively for the benefit of the country. Recent experience would suggest otherwise. Small businesses in general are particularly reluctant to take on additional staff at any time because of the onerous administrative requirements of our current employment legislation. Larger businesses are going to become increasingly reliant on short-term contracts and the use of agency staff to cover any labour shortages that their growth might generate.

For most people of working age, portfolio working will become the norm rather than the exception and a “job for life” will become a quaint anachronism. The real challenge in this is for our education system and its ability and preparedness to deliver truly transferable skills for new generations.

Our modern economy requires much less knowledge and much more skill from its workforce, but are our schools ready or even able to teach modern and transferable skills in preference to traditional knowledge? Judging by their eagerness to make sacred cows of their sixth forms, the answer seems to be an emphatic “No”.

What is required is a new approach to the question “What is education for?” Over recent years successive governments have sought to expand education, particularly higher education, in the mistaken belief that everyone needs more knowledge to serve a knowledge-based economy. But is this right? It would seem to me that the knowledge-based economy needs only a few with the knowledge and many with the skills to apply that knowledge to the benefit of the economy in particular and society in general.

Is it time to re-think our notions of “comprehensive education” and to recognise that some schools need to serve those that require knowledge and perhaps other, different schools need to concentrate on providing skills relevant to work in a modern economy. Is it time to stop kidding ourselves that, as far as education is concerned, one type of comprehensive education from 11 to 16 is suitable for all pupils?