As The Election Approaches, No One Is Talking About Education – Are They Too Scared Of The Massive Elephant In The Room?
Issues like fair funding and teacher supply needed for post Brexit times demand such complex, sophisticated solutions that the parties either don’t know how to resolve them, or may feel are too dangerous to address during the election
- by Fiona Millar
It is a strange time. There is an election going on in a world where political upsets are becoming more common. Yet the outcome in the UK is taken to be a foregone conclusion and, Brexit aside, the campaign stances of the main parties are uninspiring. And nowhere is this more true than in education policy.
In reality there are few elections in which education surfaces as a burning issue or a game changer. Big moments – like Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan’s Ruskin speech in 1976, or the 1988 Great Education Reform Act, often take place outside the campaign period.
But in recent history the 1997 election echoed with commitments made in Tony Blair’s Education, Education, Education conference address the previous autumn. Thirteen years on Shadow Education Secretary Michael Gove’s ardent support for free schools and curriculum change may have ended up unleashing creative chaos post-2010, but it certainly propelled school reform into the political spotlight.
No appetite for education
However, there seems little chance that 2017 will be an education election. Why is that? There is a natural ebb and flow to political priorities and relentless reform over the last seven years has probably dulled the appetite for more radical change. Turning the tanker round again in mid journey would cause untold grief.
Moreover many parents are happy with their children’s schools. Most polling evidence suggests this. We know that there are difficult times coming, already being experienced in some areas, and awareness of future drastic funding cuts is growing.
But schools have also got much better in the last 20 years; investment in teachers, buildings and facilities before 2010 is probably still paying off. However disliked Ofsted and external performance measures may be, most schools are very focused on improvement. Almost 80% are judged good or outstanding, which boosts confidence in local communities.
Too big; too complicated
The shockwaves which new GCSEs and grading systems may bring, haven’t yet registered in many voters’ homes. Added to which headteachers, while wanting parent support for anti-cuts campaigns, also know that they must keep up morale for staff, pupils and parents.
They have to walk a tricky high wire; on the one hand speaking out to put political pressure on ministers, on the other urgently obliged to minimise the damage austerity may bring. This aspect of local leadership is less obvious in the more amorphous NHS, which usually trumps education at the top of the public’s list of concerns.
But I suspect the real reason this won’t be an education election is that the big elephants in the room – fair funding, teacher supply and the sort of curriculum and qualifications we need for post Brexit times – demand such complex, sophisticated solutions that the parties either don’t know how to resolve them, or may even feel it is too dangerous to unleash them as high profile issues in the campaign.
Remember, the National Funding formula has taken almost two years to develop and we haven’t even got to the end of the consultation period against a backdrop of massive opposition from both winners and losers. Tackling teacher supply means reforming pay, workload and the wider culture in which schools now operate.
Headline-grabbing gimmicks
From what we can see, the sort of detailed thinking that went on in the run up to the 1997 and 2010 elections is absent from both the political back rooms and the think tanks, which in the past have been the engine room of radical ideas. Love them or loathe them the proposals that emerged in the past were the result of hard work and intellectual firepower.
In an ideal world funding, teacher supply, and the need to develop skills and high status vocational education would now be the subject of intensive debate and scrutiny.
Instead I predict we will be left with a series of superficially seductive gimmicks such as free school meals for all or political pet projects like grammar schools for some. Ideas that grab headlines, but fail to get to grips with the real pressing issues – and may even damage the progress that has been made in the last 25 years.
