John Hayward Posted: 30 April 2008
Keywords: Education,
"Schools will be made to keep records of teenage pregnancy rates, pupils' drug problems, criminal records and obesity levels under government plans to give parents a true picture of children's lives."
According to a leaked document reported on the front page of today's Guardian, Ofsted inspectors could be required from as soon as next year to judge schools on the basis of 18 new targets, from bullying and neglect, to what happens to pupils after they leave school. The problem is, should our schools really be held accountable for our children's wellbeing and social problems?
I noted last month that past research by the Jubilee Centre identified two key observations that are central to how we should evaluate the state's education provision for our children:
- Education is primarily the responsibility of the family.
- The purpose of schooling is to enable children to participate in the life of their society as adults.
If we accept that schooling should help prepare people and communities for life, then it is surely not unreasonable to use what happens to pupils after they leave school as a measure of each school's success. After all, this is all that the best schools are already doing when they proudly announce how many of their pupils have been accepted by the best secondary schools or the best universities.
We have been encouraged over many years to think of education purely in terms of knowledge imparted and skills acquired. However, if, as we suggested yesterday, we are to rebuild the relational foundation of our communities and thereby reverse the decline of community that tops the list of our generation's "social evils", then we will need to adopt a more holistic understanding of what education is about. Wisdom and behaviour may not be as simple to evaluate, but examining drug problems, criminal records, and teenage pregnancy rates might not be a bad place to start.
Yet, if a more holistic assessment is to be introduced, we will first need to update our attitudes about the role of schools. For, if we do not promote a closer partnership between families, schools, clubs, faith groups, and others in society who contribute (or should contribute) to our children's upbringing, then the burden of poor assessment will wrongly fall wholly upon the professionals: the teachers and headteachers, who are already leaving the profession in record numbers. Yes, education should be seen as preparation for life; but the primary responsibility should lie with families, not the state. The question that Ofsted should be asking of schools is: How closely are they working with others in the community to promote a healthy upbringing for the next generation?
The problem is we have been blighted by the idea that there is no hope for children whose parents have failed to shape their lives during their first five years. From my experiences as a parent and working with communities in Borneo, who make no attempt to discipline children below the age of five, later development up to the age of twelve can be just as formative and unruly children can be transformed into responsible citizens from age seven to nine, or from age ten to twelve. What they need is parental commitment and graduated responsibility. Any child will be enabled to "participate in the life of their society" if parents are daily involved in their lives and give them increasing responsibility for household chores and decisions affecting their lives.
Bill Lees 9 May 2008
I agree with the last part of Bills post, but not the begining. Children need input from their parents from day 1. It is of course possible for a child to turn out a well rounded and likable person if they do not, but it is less likely. i see children who are either ignored and somtimes hated by one or both of thier parents making them troubled and unsure, or at the other end of the spectrum, children who are simply covered in money by parents who beileve that that is all that is necesary for the child to develop well.
Robin H 16 May 2008
The managements of schools, all over the world have become, increasingly, 'salesmen' , very concerned about negative information of all kinds.
Of course, there is a sense that it is extremly unfair to all schools with a 'difficult' intake, through no fault of their own, when they have to publish their academic results - and now it is suggested they publish evidence of the moral decline in the nation/area? But it is not only schools that tend to sweep negative stuff under the carpet...........
The area I am MUCH more concerned about is the university level. They do not have to publish their suicide figures and there is an unpleasant feeling that there is something of an epidemic. I live round the corner from the University of Essex and they have had to make the windows in their residential tower blocks so they cannot fully open to avoid students jumping out to kill themselves. It has the highest percentage of overseas students in the UK but this is precisely the share of the market where the PRESSURE is on - to get rich kids to come and study in the UK . As I go round Dhaka, you can see the pressure in the form of the advertising on the hoardings! All the universities of the developed world are out to get our best kids! - and the clever websites!
Some of these kids - like the ones I teach - come from rich families but their life-styles are bizarre - almost imprisoned in luxury flats, which they rarely leave, except in the car, through the gates of the apartment block, not allowed to go into the streets on their own, very little social life, private tutors and so little general knowledge about the world and of people and how to handle themselves that I shudder to contemplate the culture shock of moving to a university in the developed world. (I was furious that a place called St Patrick's College, in the middle of London, was advertising for students with 5 'O' levels and telling them they could get a university degree in FOUR years! I thought of the immaturity of my O level candidates and winced at the thought of putting them down in the middle of London!)
These are the students who are buttered up,, told they are 'brilliant' by their parents - maybe uneducated who are a bit in awe of them - and their schools and private tutors who are lining their own pockets and boasting of the pupils they have helped to send overseas. They are given A grades very easily and arrive thinking they are going to get first class degrees! Some of them are sent by families who expect that, when they return, they are going to get jobs with fantastic salaries and the whole family will benefit financially - which is why they have cleaned out their savings to send them .......
Add to this that many of them come from cultures where 'shame' is a big factor and, when they realise they are not going to get golden results, they cannot face going home.
There is also the factor that some of them have no idea how to work on their own! Their schools and tutors have just given them pages of notes to memorise and they have not understood how to do research in libraries - because they have never had the opportunity to use a proper library. The internet is helping a bit, of course, but is still no real preparation for a good western university. When they arrive, how many of them will own up to the troubles they are having and seek help? That too is not part of their culture...
All the pressure is on universities to hush up all signs of their 'failure' especially with overseas students. I think there is a doctorate waiting to be done - on WHAT HAPPENS to these overseas students who arrive with their golden A level results - some of the students in my school get 4 or 5 A grades at A level....- when they hit the overseas university? What percentage of them end up not completing the course, disappearing into the society, breaking down, making themselves ill, committing suicide, getting awful results - and, above all, NOT getting high-paid jobs either in their own country or the country where the university is, where they try to get a job in order to send some money home in order to keep their families belief in them? No one seems interested in finding out. This is what people need to know back home in the rising middle and upper classes in the developing world.
This is the question I am asking from an amazing little country that gets many of the best results in O and A level in the WORLD! Did you know that? Little Bangladesh! But someone needs to come and do a doctorate also of the personal COST to these lovely childen of the appalling pressure they are put under to get these results which are, in fact, their ticket to a wider world and, for many, their ticket OUT of their country to the developed world as so many of them leave their country for their betterment - and, of course, to send money to their family back home who expect it of them because of the sacrifices they perceive themselves to have made for their offspring.
It is a tangled web but more information is needed to help us think - so we can work out what is actually happening.
Angela Robinson 2 June 2008