Labour's curriculum for mediocrity

The government's proposed changes promise more politicisation and lower standards

Photo by Vladislav Vasilev on Unsplash

This week, the government published its long-awaited review of the school curriculum. Since Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson set the educational reform ball rolling shortly after taking office, there has been concern that the proposed changes might dilute practices implemented by Michael Gove and Nick Gibb that raised standards in our schools. There were also troubling signs that the people and organisations feeding into Labour’s review had a political agenda and wanted schools to go further in projects such as decolonising the curriculum. I have previously explored why this is a problem.

With the review now published, it is clear that these concerns were not groundless.

The first paragraph of the executive summary begins with a clear and positive statement: ‘Education is inherently valuable and important for its own sake…’ Very true! If the sentence - and, preferably, the document - stopped there, so much the better. But, alas, it continues: ‘it also plays a crucial role in supporting individual success, in providing young people with the necessary knowledge and skills to build a prosperous economy and flourishing civil society, and in promoting social cohesion and democracy.’ Throughout the 197 pages of Building a world-class curriculum for all, it is this second half of the sentence that dominates. The key words and phrases are: ‘skills’, ‘investment’, ‘fit for the future’, ‘our fast-changing world’, ‘global challenges’, and ‘social justice’.

This focus on ‘relevance’ and future-orientation means subject knowledge is squeezed out to make room for skills and thinly veiled political objectives. For example, children are to be taught ‘financial education’, which, the document explains, ‘includes understanding core financial concepts such as budgeting, debt, interest, mortgages and pensions’. Adults might benefit from such instruction, although those who are literate and numerate are best placed to work out how to manage their money by themselves. But it demeans education to make such profane content the business of the school.

A focus on ‘digital’ and ‘media literacy’ blurs basic life skills with the demands of the workplace and political messaging. There is considerable emphasis on teaching children how to ‘identify and protect against misinformation and disinformation’ so they can sort truth from conspiracy theories. But the problem for teachers is that these are contested concepts. The idea that people can change sex, for example, is scientifically false, yet it has, in recent years, been taught to children as fact. Likewise, the idea that the Covid-19 virus originated in a laboratory was branded a conspiracy theory by governments and social media companies, yet increasing evidence suggests that this was, indeed, the case. Ultimately, the designation ‘fake news’ is often an attempt at stemming narratives that are not in the political mainstream.

The new curriculum will be altogether more political. Schools will be expected to go further in ensuring that teaching materials are ‘inclusive’ and ‘diverse’ so ‘that all young people feel represented.’ The phrase ‘climate change’ appears in the curriculum document 26 times, with ‘climate change denial’ highlighted as a primary example of the misinformation that teachers must challenge.

What will go to make way for all these new ‘literacies’? Romantic poetry looks likely to be dropped from GCSE English Literature, whilst English Language will have ‘a focus on identifying emotive language and looking at “transient” texts such as blogs, emails and newspapers rather than novels.’ History will be, ‘“suitably modernised and refreshed” so that teachers can draw on a range of figures and content that best suit the needs of their pupils and “paint a picture of a modern and forward-looking Britain”.’ And ditching the English Baccalaureate (the expectation that children should study a broad range of academic subjects up to age 16) is likely to lead to a further decline in the teaching of modern foreign languages.

A reduction in the time teenagers spend taking GCSE exams is proposed. Many long-suffering parents will agree instinctively that this is a good idea; exam season has expanded into a months-long slog. However, right now, it is the importance of exams, rather than moral assumptions about the significance of knowledge, that motivates teachers and gives schools a sense of purpose. In this context, cutting exam time is highly likely to reduce the volume and rigour of what children are taught.

I make the case for exams in a paper I wrote for Civitas, In Defence of Standards, which was published earlier this week. I write:

There is a moral case to be made for exams. Education should be understood as primarily concerned with passing a body of valuable subject knowledge from one generation to the next. When seen in this way, we move away from instrumental, individual goals relating to employability skills, social mobility or self-esteem. Instead, when knowledge is considered important for its own sake, education becomes viewed as an intrinsically important project. Preserving and contributing to the sum total of knowledge benefits humanity. To this end, it becomes a moral imperative for society to identify those most capable of mastering knowledge and, in the future, contributing to its transmission and pursuit. Rigorous, knowledge-based exams enable teachers (and society) to determine which pupils are capable of higher learning and playing a further role in relation to knowledge. Exams are about far more than certificates or credentials. They speak to the capacity of adults to assert educational standards in relation to both quality and knowledge content and to pass on to children the aspiration that they will live up to these goals. This makes exams vital to maintaining and raising standards. They must be defended.

You can read the full paper here.

Sadly, the government’s curriculum review does not make a moral case for exams or the passing on of knowledge. It seems likely to lead only to more politicisation of the curriculum and lower academic standards.

Finally, I will be discussing all these issues in Glasgow next Saturday, at a conference organised by the Scottish Union for Education: Why Scottish Education Matters. If you can, please come along, join the discussion, and say hello!