Criticism about the education system has been coming in hard and fast for much of New Labour’s time in power – particularly as Blair’s term comes to an end. However, over the last few days the curriculum has received a critical double-whammy. On Friday, new research confirmed what has already been confirmed by a plethora of evidence: that the persistent overload of Whitehall initiatives is doing little to improve schools, when not actually doing harm. A report published by the Nuffield Foundation warned that ‘policy busyness’ has failed to impact on the entrenched weaknesses in the education system. A key criticism to come out of the study led by Oxford University’s Professor Richard Pring, is that rather than focusing on the causes of these weaknesses the government has focused on the symptoms. Moreover, the report goes on to say that: ‘…in responding to symptomatic problems, Government has attempted to implement a whole range of policies at a very fast pace.’
Today, the National Geographic published research showing that in a survey of 1,000 children one in five of British under-14 year-olds was unable to find the UK on a map of the world, and that one in 10 was unable to name any of the world’s continents. The general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union took a rather odd defence against this finding saying that there was a ‘constant desire’ for groups to produce statistics doing down the system and thereby teachers’ abilities. Yet it is extremely unlikely that the glossy coffee table would be taking such a political stance to be actively seeking evidence of poor teaching. What is more, the weakness the survey reveals reflects not teaching quality but the effect of an over-concentration on A roads and river-flow in Geography. The only injustice might be blaming New Labour on the poor geography curriculum. Country geography seems to have fallen by the wayside pre-1997.
Anastasia de Waal