Where regret is due

Anastasia De Waal, 13 February 2009

Professor Adrian Smith, a civil servant who is currently director general of science and research, has found himself in hot water – ostensibly for expressing his true assessment of the new Diploma courses.

Adrian Smith told a lecture audience this week that the newly-introduced Diploma was ‘schizophrenic’ and lacked joined-up thinking. Smith was recorded by a Times Educational Supplement journalist as saying that:
‘In core subjects like maths and physics we already have a shortage of qualified teacher cover. Are we wise in adding different bits of curricular offerings, each of which will require additional teacher input? Are we thinking in a joined-up way when we plan curriculum developments and new programmes, whether we have the teacher power, planning and recruitment? Might we not be better getting GCSEs and A-levels right first?’
The Diploma has not got off to a good start, largely to do with a questionable design and a questionable purpose. The first five Diplomas were introduced last September but have managed to draw a much smaller take-up than the government predicted. By 2013, the aim is to have rolled out a further 14 Diploma areas, with three additional ‘academic’ ones in the humanities, languages and science. As well as lacking appeal for pupils, the Diploma has not been particularly well endorsed by educationalists.
The greatest problem with the Diploma is that, essentially, its raison d’être is to elevate the status of vocational qualifications and status of weaker-performing pupils without actually improving either vocational education or real achievement. Instead the approach has centred on giving material tenuously linked to vocational training, an academic veneer.
Professor Smith, however, has retracted his own criticisms of the Diploma, expressing ‘deep regret’ in letters of apology to both the secretary of state for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. A government spokesperson issued a startling response saying that:
‘[Professor Smith] comments were made as part of a wide-ranging and open discussion and were never meant as a criticism of government policy.’
And most worryingly of all:
‘Professor Smith took up his government post late last year and his remarks do not reflect the advice he has given to the secretary of state.’
We can conclude therefore that the advice Smith is being paid for by the government by no means necessarily reflects his true views. As a well-regarded expert, this is alarming. If only advisers would be critical of poor policy – identifying disastrous initiatives rather than trying to work around them – education would stand a much better chance. That this appears to be categorically at odds with the role of expert advisory is deeply regrettable.