Labour Education Reforms
9th October 2012 9:00
It was interesting to read about Ed Milliband’s ideas for education reform last week. If I’m honest, I’m really not sure how I feel about making it mandatory for students to study English and Maths until they’re 18. I know that lots of employers would wholeheartedly endorse the reform, because there is a general feeling that young people today, even university graduates, don’t have the requisite writing and maths skills to adequately do their jobs.
At the age of 16 I would have hated being asked to continue with English. It was never a subject that excited me, and I was glad to be able to leave essay writing behind and stick to subjects I was more enthusiastic about. However, now I really regret not reading more, and challenging that part of my mind when I was younger. My writing has improved since I left school, but I think it was always of a reasonable standard, and I’m able to write clearly and without many obvious errors. I don’t think these reforms are considering someone like me though, they’re actually trying to combat students whose English and maths skills are unacceptable, rather than trying to give a science or an arts student a more rounded education.
It’s worrying that we’re now accepting the fact that the average standard of maths and English of a GCSE student is not good enough. Without doubt this wasn’t true 30 years ago when people were still studying O Levels. I think we’re not addressing the problem, which is that we’ve become worse at teaching English and maths. And when I say ‘we’, I mean we all take responsibility; parents, teachers, politicians, the media. It seems that, rather than repair the infrastructure of education, we’re suggesting reforms that just build another storey on wobbly foundations.