Two months after the government-commissioned primary curriculum review published its interim report, we now have an independent review into primary education led by Cambridge University. Unlike the government's Rose review, which proposed replacing all traditional subject areas with six new areas of learning but failed to address the more fundamental question of the purpose of education, today's interim report from the Cambridge Primary Review calls for an urgent debate about what primary education is for.

Education has been defined as 'the whole life of the community seen from the viewpoint of learning to live that life', but for many years our education process has focussed on academic achievement at the expense of other life skills. Although GCSE and A-level pass rates improve every year, there is a simultaneous sense that society is failing to help our children grow to be responsible adults, able to fulfil their full God-given potential. That too many children (one in five) proceed to secondary education without basic literacy and numeracy skills is clear evidence of failure somewhere in the system.

Damningly, the Director of the Cambridge Review writes, 'The Cambridge report is more worried about the erosion of children's entitlement to a balanced education; about the persistence of the discredited official belief that you can have standards or breadth but not both; about the distortion of the curriculum by testing and the national strategies; about the way for years primary children have had not one curriculum but two - the 'basics' and the rest - with the latter stunted and trivialised by their neglect in teacher training, inspection and CPD. In each case, policies aimed at raising standards have compromised the quality of children's education more broadly conceived.'

The Cambridge report offers a vision for primary education in the 21st century based upon twelve aims, grouped under three headings: The needs and capacities of the individual (wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy), the individual in relation to others and the wider world (encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community), and learning, knowing and doing (knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue). Encouragingly, it also calls for more freedom from the national curriculum, suggesting that about 30 per cent of the curriculum should be decided locally, so as to encourage innovation, respond to local needs and opportunities, and address concerns about the place of the primary school in community life and regeneration.

The Jubilee Centre believes that this is a strategic moment for Christians to be more actively engaged with the important job of preparing children for life as responsible and active citizens. That is why one year ago we identified the issue of education as our next major area of research, as we continue to build on the biblical vision for society that we have developed over the past twenty-five years and that is encapsulated in Jubilee Manifesto.

Working with a group of expert organisational partners our goal is to provide fresh thinking and a theological foundation to challenge and inform Christians and wider society. So, for instance, in partnership with the Education cluster of the Evangelical Alliance's Forum For Change we anticipate soon being able to issue a joint statement expressing a Christian vision for education. Consistent with public statements that the Jubilee Centre has issued in recent months (including, for instance, letters published in The Guardian and The Times), we would expect this to affirm the need for a holistic approach to education that focuses on character and wisdom rather than skills and knowledge, in which education is understood as the preparation of both children and adults so that they can contribute to the life of their communities both now and in the future, and which acknowledges that the primary responsibility for education lies with families and local communities.

• 
• Share