Centralised education system is failing pupils - Clegg (part 1)

17 June 2008

In a stinging criticism of the Government's ‘one size fits all’ approach to schools, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg sets out his vision for an education system free from the unnecessary meddling of Government Ministers. In a speech sponsored by CentreForum and hosted by Microsoft in central London, Nick Clegg lays out plans to give schools greater freedoms, allowing them to tailor education to the needs of their pupils.

This is part one of Nick Clegg's speech. Click here to read part two.

"Thank you to both Microsoft and CentreForum for giving me this opportunity to talk today about personalising our public services. I want to focus on our schools, and how we can personalise education for our children.

This the second of three speeches on education I’m making this month.
 
I’m putting my focus on education because it is through education that we can break down the barriers to social mobility and truly create an opportunity society in Britain today.
 
For me, liberalism is about many things but at its core is the message that individuals should be able to achieve their potential no matter what their background is.
 
Two weeks ago, speaking to the ippr, I talked about how we should restructure the way England’s schools are funded.
 
Making the system fair to all schools, and all pupils across the country.
 
And later this week, I’ll be talking to the Governors’ Association in my home town of Sheffield, about how we can reform the curriculum to draw children in, and equip them for the 21st century.
 
But today - with the theme of this conference in mind - I want to talk about tailoring education to the needs of the individual student, so that everyone gets the help and opportunities they need.
 
Personalisation
 
There is a lot of talk about this personalisation agenda across our public services - and about the reform of education more widely.
 
And I know there are some people who feel suspicious when they hear words like personalisation.
 
On the one hand many teachers feel that a personalised education is exactly what they have been seeking to deliver for children for years if not all their working lives.
 
And on the other, many commentators will hear in Gordon Brown and Ed Balls’ use of the word “personalisation” an empty substitute for Blairite reforms - designed to sound new but change little.
 
But I believe personalisation is genuinely important across our public services - as long as it is more than a soundbite or a smokescreen.
 
Increasingly, the people of Britain - call them citizens, consumers, voters, whatever you like - they’re demanding a new relationship between themselves and the state.
 
They want public services which offer more flexibility and diversity - and fit with individual needs and circumstances - rather than being offered on the basis of a “take it or leave it” centrally prescribed format.
 
But the drive for personalisation is not just about meeting a consumerist demand for change. It is also the way to deliver the fairness we all want in our society.
 
When services are monolithic and unbending, it is the weakest and most vulnerable in society - those who don’t have the money or skills to negotiate a better deal - who suffer the most. Liberalism offers a progressive solution.
 
Because by empowering every citizen, we create a society where everyone can access the services, and pursue the opportunities they need to progress, no matter their background.
 
Government record
 
The Government claims to be delivering on the “personalisation” agenda, but there is a huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality. There are promises to give schools greater independence -
 
But these are contradicted by the constant tendency to micromanagement and initiativitis. What we have is actually the antithesis of “personalisation”.
 
First: England still has one of the most highly centralised and prescriptive education systems in the world.
 
Second: funding too often bears no relation to the needs of individual children.
 
Third: our curriculum is far too prescriptive, and still hopelessly inadequate for large numbers of children.
 
Fourth: testing is too often only about holding schools to account, instead of improving the education of individual pupils.
 
So there are strong incentives for schools to effectively write off youngsters who can’t cross over the borderline to the grades which earn league table points.
 
Fifth: we are failing to use the enormous possibilities of new technology to deliver a more personalised education, and help improve the performance of both teachers and pupils.
 
And finally, we have a centrally driven programme of schools reform which is being powered and shaped by a single minister in Whitehall, who has the say on almost every new school and how it will operate.
 
This is education driven by central targets, not by individual needs, an approach which fails to bring out the best in our children. It is these six issues I want to address today.
 
Showing how we can:
Dismantle the central control of our education system
Reform funding structures
Create an assessment system which meets all pupil needs
Change the curriculum
Use new technology
And make it easier for new schools to be established.
 
Curtailing Whitehall

Let’s start at the top: with Whitehall. Ministers often talk about independence and personalisation. But I have no idea how they do it with a straight face.
 
We have one of the most centralised and prescriptive educational systems in the world - and almost everything they do under the banner of “independence” or “personalisation” makes it even more centralised and prescriptive.
 
It happens because there is huge political pressure to be seen to be doing something.
 
The temptation to roll out a new initiative to get some positive headlines in the newspapers can be overwhelming.
 
But more fundamentally, it happens because the Whitehall approach is founded on the belief that only one model of education should be applied across the maintained schools system.
 
And that the job of government is to work out which single system is the best - and enforce it. So this one model is followed for a period of time, until it is found to be flawed.
 
Then every school is then instructed to change course to a different model. And the cycle continues.
 
As a result there is no capacity to innovate and no chance to learn from testing different forms of education against each other.
 
I can understand the pressure to be seen to be doing something.
 
Particularly when a significant minority of schools have had unacceptably bad results, sometimes for years on end.
 
But we need a new balance between accountability and independence.
 
We need to take the politics out of the day-to-day, and term-to-term management of schools.
 
We need to strip Ministers of their power to meddle and micro-manage, and give them a new strategic role.
 
And we need government to stop being so afraid of diversity.
 
There is nothing wrong with different schools being different from one another.
 
In fact, when the system encompasses difference, schools can learn from others’ success, and improve together, in a way that is impossible when uniformity is imposed from above.
 
This is a lesson the Conservatives need to learn as well. They, like the government, talk enthusiastically about school independence.
 
But as soon as they fancy capturing a newspaper headline, they propose compelling schools to use only synthetic phonics, compelling schools to have a blazer as part of their school uniform, or compelling students to stand when a teacher comes into the room.
 
There is nothing wrong with any of these approaches for a school to take - but the decisions should be taken by teachers, head teachers and governors.
 
There is no other country in the world where a minister, or shadow minister, would ever seek to tell six million children when they can and cannot sit down. The instinct to command and control is strong in Whitehall.
 
So we will only get change if we change the system. That is why my party is now actively considering a radical proposal to take powers away from the central Department for Children, Schools and Families - and establish instead an Educational Standards Authority.
 
This would be accountable to Parliament, and not to Ministers. It would be designed explicitly to distance politicians from short term management of schools.
 
The DCSF would be halved in size. It would focus only on setting the broad strategic goals of the education system, and the legal frameworks.
 
And ministers would have to stop sending their regular diet of directives and diktats to schools.
 
In fact I’d ban them from doing it - with an Education Freedom Act. An Educational Standards Authority would be a powerful body - with independent oversight of exam standards - with responsibility for schools inspection, incorporating the existing OFSTED - and with responsibility for commissioning research on good educational practices and disseminating advice on best practice to schools.
 
This model would reduce the powers of central government micromanagement, and end the almost daily departmental e-mails dictating new obligations and changed regulations."

Applicability: this item refers to England and Wales. Due to devolution, detailed policy may be different in other areas of the UK.