Tag: Policy

On Creativity: is ‘might’ the answer…as well as the question?

The eminent, and now sadly departed, educationalist Dorothy Heathcote used to say that the most powerful word in education is the word ‘might’.

Asking a student ‘what MIGHT be the answer?’ rather than ‘what IS the answer?’ opens up the possibilities, the questioning, the pondering, the wondering….the creativity.’

Our handbooks say things like (and I know, because I’ve written them as well) “On the completion of this module/course/program the student WILL be able to demonstrate a, b, c, d…..”We don’t write “On completion of this module/ course/ programme the student may be able to do THIS pretty well, but they also might be able to do THAT even better, and what’s more, they may be able to do stuff we haven’t even though of yet”.

But that sort of language and thinking doesn’t go down too well at the validation board, or with the quality assurance people, or with the policy makers, who require everything to be identified, categorised and pinned down, like a collection of dead butterflies.

How can we/do we – in education – break out of the ever tightening circle of predict and provide, control and compliance?

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(Dorothy Heathcote’s obituary in The Guardian)

Higher Education and the Myth of the Level Playing Field

For as long as I can remember, the idea that the many and diverse higher education institutions in the UK are playing, and must continue to play, on a single, level playing field has been one of the key tenets of our HE sector. The phrase appears in virtually every major policy document in regard to higher education, and it underpins many of the debates and discussions about its future. The idea of the single level playing field underpins notions such as a 2:1 from institution x is the exactly the same as a 2:1 from every other institution in the sector.

Really?

I find I am not alone in my scepticism. Back in 2012, Paul Greatrix reported that “Steve Egan, Deputy Chief Executive at HEFCE, at a recent AHUA (Association of Heads of University Administration) event, was rather dismissive of the idea of a single level playing field, preferring to imagine number of different playing fields. However, it was not clear if these were side by side or one on top of each other or indeed whether they were marked up for the same game or which teams were playing on each”.

To answer Paul Greatrix, of course there are a number of different playing fields, and though everyone is playing the same game, the pitches are marked up for different versions of the game. Think football. There’s 11-a-side, 6-a-side, 5-a-side, Futsal, beach football, etc. There are outdoor pitches and indoor pitches. There are different types and sizes of pitches, different markings, different goal sizes. There are different rules…..but it’s all still, clearly football.

It is patently absurd to believe that a small, specialist, world-leading music conservatoire is playing the same game, on the same pitch, as a large, multi-subject, research-intensive, world-leading university. They may have ‘world-leading’ in common, but that’s about it. It is similarly absurd to imagine that a university that successfully specialises in widening participation and recruits from the lower social percentiles is playing the same ‘game’ with the same outcomes as an elite-focused university that recruits mainly from the top social percentiles. Mission, values, teaching styles, staff-student ratios, the student body, student experience on campus and external, research profiles and output, employability, etc. are all very different.

The problem we have in the UK was elegantly expressed by David Eastwood, the Chair of the Russell Group, at the recent Parliamentary Select Committee meeting into teaching quality in higher education: “We have a genius for turning difference into hierarchy”. That is certainly one reason we are loath to let go of the myth of the single level playing field. The fear is that once we admit there are different playing fields in higher education, we will immediately begin to construct hierarchies and league tables, with all the consequent gaming of the system (and academics are expert gamers), triumphalism and desperation.

It was also pointed out at the Select Committee meeting that the sheer diversity of UK higher education is one of its greatest strengths. Prof. Joy Carter, Chair of GuildHE, spoke about importance of having and maintaining ‘Excellence in Diversity’ (which just happens to be the title of the report I wrote for Guild HE). The different playing fields lie together on a hierarchy-less plane, each displaying excellence in different forms. Any hierarchy is in the eye of the beholder, and that excellence in diversity is something that ought to be celebrated and sustained by intelligent, informed policies and strategies, not threatened by simplistic, unfit-for-purpose, one-size-fits all metrics. The maintenance and enhancement of the UK’s world-leading sector requires sophisticated evidence-based policies, not policy-based evidence.

From out of the educational wilderness…towards what?

Two things became clear to me this week, both connected with education.

The first, I suspect, has been clear to many for quite some time, so I’m just ‘keeping up at the back’ on that one. The second one is far less publicly obvious, but I reckon is rather more insidious than the first.

The first is that the Tories have probably given up on the idea of winning the next election (my predictive text insisted on ‘ejection’!) and forming a government. So they have embarked on a mission to change the educational landscape so fundamentally and significantly that no government will be able to undo or reverse – within the lifetime of that government or even just a lifetime – any of the changes that have been wrought.

The second thing that occurred to me, which became obvious at a meeting I attended at the Department for Education (DfE) on the reform of ‘A’ levels, is that the ideological pressure is now so great that the language of education is being changed fundamentally,  literally as we speak it and write it.

Others have commented – in various and many articles and blogs  – how words and phrases such as ‘child-centred’ and ‘progressive’ that used to have such a positive, hopeful meaning now attract only scorn and derision from those who deign to govern us. There has also been a great deal of concern and comment regarding the constant dismissal and consequent erosion of the arts – which, by their nature, tend to be child-centred and progressive – in the national curriculum and in the media discourses on education. It’s all about STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.

It’s also worth noting that the academies and free schools, that are so favoured by our government, are not tied to the national curriculum, so other measures (see below) are required to ensure the focus on STEM is maintained.

Recently the ideological focus has expanded to encompass not only the primary and secondary sectors, but also the tertiary sector and higher education (note: Mr. Gove has admitted in print that he would love to have the whole educational system under his guiding wing at the Dept. for Education).

To accompany and support this expanded focus, and to maintain the ideological commitment to STEM, we have had to adopt a new vocabulary of educational double-speak, in which some ‘A’ levels are designated ‘facilitating subjects’ for entry into a ‘good university’, while others – mainly but not only arts subjects – are designated ‘non-facilitating subjects’. In addition, Ofqual (the government agency responsible for all qualifications in the schools’ sector) has decreed that all ‘A’ levels must be designated as either ‘exam-assessed’ or ‘non-exam assessed’, the latter referring to any form of assessment that is not a traditional, sit-down, written examination: a not uncommon phenomenon in the arts. What is astonishing is that the nice, seemingly intelligent people at Ofqual and the DfE insist that there is absolutely no implication of value in that language. They insist that all subjects are regarded as equal, despite the unequivocal evidence that some are clearly more equal than others. The baleful consequences can be seen in the growing list of schools that have deleted arts subjects from the list of A levels they offer.

Our political leaders have taken it upon themselves to lead us out from what they perceive as the desert of educational disaster – in which we have been wandering for at least  40 years – and to enter the promised land flowing with STEM and increased PISA scores. When it comes to education, particularly in England, they are guided not by the evidence provided by years of careful, rigorous research by educational researchers, nor by the evidence provided by scientists in new and potentially paradigm-shifting fields such as educational neuroscience. Rather they stick a finger in the air to see which way the ideological wind is blowing, listen carefully to what their favourite soothsayer has to say on the evils of past educational discourses and practices, check that the pillar of right-teous ire that is the Daily Mail is well and truly behind them and that the pillar of smoke and mirrors is in front of them…and off they go, confident that the caste of pedagogic priests and disciplinarians that they have appointed will ensure obedience and silence dissent.

As we traipse reluctantly behind them, we look back to see the tattered tents and banners of genuine, life-enriching and life-enhancing education left blowin’ in the wind.