18th January 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The planned overhaul of the national curriculum is to be delayed until 2014. Reported on the BBC, Michael Gove has announced that the review of the existing curriculum will take longer than expected to ensure that the right solution is found. Mr. Gove said “The longer timescale will allow for further debate with everyone interested in creating a genuinely world-class education system.”
The education secretary wants standards in the UK to match those of our high-performing counterparts in Asia. Recent surveys have suggested that we have fallen behind countries like Singapore and Hong Kong in the core subjects, and Gove believes that we should use Asian systems as a template to redesign our own. For example, in Hong Kong teachers ensure that every student in a class has understood a topic before moving on, but the same is not true in the UK.
Academies will not have to conform to the new curriculum when it is introduced. Currently 40% of secondary schools in the UK have academy status, and that figure is likely to be over 50% when the review is finally implemented in 2014.
Stephen Twigg, Labour’s education spokesman, has written to Gove to suggest there is a consensus among the main parties regarding the future of education, so that any changes are not derailed following a change in government. The announcement to delay the changes was welcomed by teaching unions who said that more debate was a positive step to getting the system right, and that it was sensible to further including the teaching profession in such debate.