Civitas

Whilst the government has been boasting its successes in GCSE attainment, it turns out that the figures fail to include maths and English. Only thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, under which the BBC was able to obtain the true figures, did the true situation in secondary schools come to light. What is so concerning is that in a system celebrating its alleged successes, the reality is that over half of all GCSE pupils are currently failing to achieve adequate levels in the English and maths. The headlines put out by the DfES showed that the number of pupils scoring A*-C at GCSE level this year had increased by two percentage points to 55.7%. However, once maths and English are taken into account, the proportion of pupils receiving 5 good GCSEs drops to just 44.1%. Furthermore, one in six of the schools which claimed improved results actually saw a decline once maths and English were included.

A principal lesson from this debacle is the dangerous nature of New Labour’s rhetoric. Not only is Blair’s desire to seize headlines misleading parents, it is driving schools and the DfES to pervert the purpose of education. In response to the revelation, Kelly has announced that schools will be obliged to include maths and English in the publication of their results. What is extraordinary is the fact that this hasn’t always been the case. That schools have been able – and indeed encouraged – to publish results which exclude the key indicators of a school’s performance is alarming. The incentive to leave out English and maths for both schools and the DfES lies in the distorted nature of a target-driven education agenda. When quantifiable yet meaningless outcomes become the aim of the game the purpose of education ceases to be to educate but instead to manipulate those subjects with the best returns. The prime example is schools boosting their league table positions by including vocational subjects in their apparently academic results. This is not about academic v vocational snobbery, but about lucid reporting. A mixture of academic and vocational subjects not only fails to give a clear picture on two very different areas of teaching, but there is also the issue of skewed equivalency between vocational GNVQs and academic GCSEs. This matters particularly when a deceptive picture of the basics is presented.

Whilst maths and English are not the only subjects of importance, they are the foundations of other education and crucial to life skills. For us to be able to judge the state of secondary education, we need to know whether pupils are able to perform simple calculations, read and write and access the rest of the curriculum. It is imperative therefore that information disseminated on school performance is usefully presented, so that it is possible to see a breakdown of what has actually been achieved. When reporting makes it difficult to tell that education policies are failing, as achievement appears to be rising, it is more difficult to challenge them. Which is exactly the desired result. Nebulous categories, we now know, mean there’s something to hide.