2 hours ago
11
Alan Milburn is right to warn that an “exam-obsessed” school system is failing to prepare young people for adult life (‘Exam-obsessed’ schools leave pupils unready for work, Alan Milburn says, 20 April). The pendulum has swung too far from personal development towards a narrow fixation on measurable attainment. A broad educational purpose has been reduced to the accumulation of grades. This is not a failure of schools, but the product of an accountability system that overvalues what is easily measured. Attainment data is prioritised, while resilience, communication, collaboration and character are sidelined.
The result is a generation leaving education well qualified on paper but less able to apply those qualifications beyond school. This reflects decades of policymaking that has undervalued personal development, including the steady erosion of arts subjects that foster creativity and confidence. Young people have far more to offer than their exam certificates; policymakers’ fixation with the easily measurable is constraining schools from developing the interpersonal skills that matter most in an increasingly complex world.
Pete Crockett
Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire
That the school system is leaving students unprepared for work is scarcely surprising. But it wasn’t always so. From 1977 and for more than a decade, the Schools Council Industry Project (SCIP) explored and supported a wide range of work placements, backed by a network of advisers and advisory teachers in most local authorities.
In 1990, a report was written by HM Inspectorate of Schools on the value of time spent on work experience, based on pupils’ writings submitted for their GCSE English exam. That report was not widely publicised, as Ofsted was uninterested. The network of supporting teachers was run down.
The inspectorate and SCIP records, with more than 400 examples of pupils’ writings, are now safely in the UCL Institute of Education library of archives in London. They should be revisited and lessons learned 30 years on.
Simon Clements
Former HM inspector of schools
Alan Milburn’s intervention, after polling which “suggests teachers believe pupils are leaving education without the skills they need for adult life”, illustrates what creative teachers have been stating for years: the arts equip young people with communication and collaboration skills, agility and creativity. The performing arts also develop skills of resilience, team-building, problem-solving, work ethic, flexibility, confidence, presentation ability, empathy and self-esteem.
Let us hope that Milburn’s review will tip the balance from overexamining pupils to enabling them to develop the skills they need in an ever-changing world.
Helen Elliott
Retired deputy headteacher, Ruishton, Somerset
I agree with Alan Milburn that pupils are overexamined and overtutored in academic subjects, but I’d have preferred the emphasis to have been on their ability to cope with life in all its complexities and demands rather than just their value in the workplace.
Theresa Seale
Farnham, Surrey
I was astonished to read in your article that Alan Milburn thinks “the system had become overly focused on academic sorting”. “Had become”? When?
Decades ago, as I struggled to shoehorn my child with severe learning disabilities into mainstream schools, I met many education professionals who believed the sole purpose of state schools was to sort out the wheat from the chaff, the academic from the rest. They could not understand why I would want my child, who clearly was never getting any A-levels, into mainstream school.
Henrietta Cubitt
Cambridge
When Alan Milburn was health secretary, his cabinet colleague Charles Clarke, the then education secretary, commissioned a review of education and training for 14– to 19-year-olds. The report of the review, authored by Sir Mike Tomlinson and published in 2004, recommended integrating GCSEs, A-levels and vocational programmes into a unified curriculum, including mandatory work experience, and a single set of qualifications.
Had the proposals been implemented there would have been a better balance between knowledge-oriented and skills-based learning, and I would suggest that today’s young people would be far more prepared for the world of work than they are.
It was not to be, however. Fearing a “save A-levels” fight with the Conservatives at the coming election, the then prime minister Tony Blair killed off the planned changes. Perhaps Milburn could consider resurrecting these proposed reforms in the report he will soon be submitting to the government on tackling the nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds who are currently not in education, employment or training.
Chris Pratt
Co-author, Building a Learning Nation
