Social mobility - I rest my case!

Alan Milburn's well attended Tribal lecture was a strange affair. It started with a message which chimes loudly with school and college leaders for whom the improvement of social mobility is at the heart of their raison d’être. He tracked the changes from a period starting in the 50s where social hope underpinned a commitment by the state to move away from a culture of ‘birth not worth’ to a society decades later which is more ossified and reflects greater social resentment. He talked of the progress the last government made to raise the glass ceiling recognising that there is much to do and cited the fact that three out of four judges, half of civil servants and one in three parliamentarians were educated privately. He described the valuable work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty commission which will rigorously and independently assess the impact of what any government is doing on the creation of a fairer society in which people from all backgrounds have equal chances of progression. So far so good until he started talking about schools.......

 For a while I was on board as he emphasised the importance of employability skills as a key and gave some strong messages to the coalition about the parlous state of careers guidance and the fact that we cannot afford not to invest in education. However, then came the proposed solutions:

Another regime of targets for schools, judging them on outcomes such as destinations of pupils.

National programmes to raise aspirations because “there aren't enough good schools”. The language of failing schools came to the fore.

And then, quite bizarrely, a proposal for parents to be ‘empowered’ to choose ‘good’ schools. Parents of children who attend ‘failing’ schools would be given a voucher to the value of one half times the per pupil funding which they could take to another school with their children.

As you can imagine a lively discussion ensued.

I continue to despair as schools are presented as the problem rather than the solution. Where are these leaders who do not want young people to succeed – who will only ‘shape up’ with yet more threats and accountability measures in a system which must be the most monitored in the world? We know the problems are so much more complex than that.

But most importantly we all know that proposals such as this would simply not work. Pupils with parents who know their way round the system would be channelled away from the schools in challenging areas to schools in leafy suburbs which would thrive on the additional funding. The remaining pupils in other schools would be condemned to education in a poorly funded environment undergoing a slow process of attrition. The gap would widen as they missed out on their only chances.

In the discussion an example was given of a school which had  apparently been ‘failing’  for many years. Why didn't the local authority close the school we asked? Because no politicians will close schools because it would lose votes.

Commitment to improving social mobility?  I rest my case.

Are we entering into a new era of cooperation between employers and educators?

Anyone  reading the media coverage of the latest CBI Education and Skills Survey would have felt a strong sense of déjà vu. The usual depressing story – school leavers lack the skills they need etc. etc. Interested in hearing the truth I went to the launch with some trepidation only to discover a classic ‘cup half empty’ story.

First of all my questions about what the definition of  a school leaver– a 16 year old with or without GCSEs, an 18 year old A Level leaver a university graduate all or some? – all remain unanswered. There is a real danger in generalisations of this kind which undermine the validity of any survey.  Nevertheless as I looked at the results it became abundantly clear that they actually confirmed a far more positive picture and a high level of consensus between employers and  school and college leaders. Here are some headlines:

68% of employers are satisfied with school and college leavers’ teamworking skills, 65% with their positive attitude to work, 64% with their basic numeracy skills, 59% with their basic literacy skills. Ironically one of the lowest  scores was 45% satisfaction with their self management skills. This includes punctuality – an irony which did not escape some of those present who were still waiting for the minister an hour after his scheduled slot. All of this demonstrates a great deal of good news, none of which was reported, yet we all recognise that we all need to work together to improve things further.

An interesting statistic was that 64% do not believe that the quality of careers advice is good enough  but a very encouraging 54% are willing to do more to support schools in delivering this. This is a great relief in the light of the continuing complete lack of progress in taking the promised All Age Advisory Service forward or even deciding what it will look like.

The DfE response was a highly predictable restatement of its commitment to the English Baccalaureate and increasing emphasis on GCSE English and Maths. This missed the point entirely as the speakers representing major employers highlighted the key issues:

Employability skills should be embedded in the national curriculum and certainly not ignored. Functional skills in literacy and numeracy should be taught and assessed – GCSE is not necessarily the answer. Problem solving skills are the least developed and need to be a priority. None of these should be taught separately – they should be integral to the teaching of all subjects. We need to continue to emphasise stem subjects. All of this sounded to me like a resounding endorsement of the kind of priorities ASCL has highlighted in making the case for a better baccalaureate

Most encouragingly employers said that they do not want to stand on the sidelines and complain. Some apt quotations from a report written in 1899 bemoaning the way young people are equipped for the world of commerce reminded the audience that this is not exactly a new problem. The need to redefine what we mean by employability skills has never been greater. ASCL is engaged in a constructive dialogue with CBI about these skills and I know from firsthand experience working with the Education Employer Taskforce that some sterling work is going on there too.

Although I was unable to wait for the minister I left feeling a lot less depressed than teachers and school leaders will have felt when reading the morning papers.