|
Departmental Strategy
Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners
Foreword: Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills by Command of Her Majesty
July 2004
Foreword by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills
Children, and all those who learn, are our future.
As we develop our strategy for the next five years for children's services, and for education and lifelong learning, we need to think about that future - about the kind of world we want our children to grow up in.
But we must also learn the lessons of the past. It is now sixty years since Butler's landmark 1944 settlement, which raised the school-leaving age to 15, and introduced free secondary education, as well as shaping a lasting partnership between Church and State in education. In the same decade, the 1942 Beveridge Report and the 1948 Children Act transformed welfare and children's services. These reforms were colossal; they transformed the landscape of welfare and of public services. Their influence is hard to over-state, and has been overwhelmingly a positive one.
However, there are three key ways in which the settlement sowed the seeds for less helpful developments in public service.
First, the model was a monolithic one - looking at the 'provision' of social services and education on the same sort of basis as public services like post-war housing - with the focus on a basic and standard product for all.
Second, administrative divisions were sharp from the outset - between health, schools, and social services - with different systems and mechanisms developed for each.
Third, the education settlement in particular was based on an assumption that ability was confined to a limited group - it was fundamentally elitist. Not only the grammar school system, but also the tiny proportion of young people able to go to University attested to (and cemented) this view. And despite the aspiration that there would be 'parity of esteem', vocational skills and training were, from the outset, clearly the poor relation. There were few technical schools, and secondary moderns were seen as the 'sinks' for those who did not make the grade for grammar school. Further education was seen as a Cinderella service, not understood or valued by policy makers who had no first-hand experience of it; and adult skills as a whole were neglected.
The move towards comprehensive education was about challenging this elitism and giving everyone a better deal. And evidence shows that it did help to improve standards, especially for those who had been put on the scrap-heap at 11 in the selective system. But the debate was still about types of school rather than standards - the principle remained that government did not interfere in how, what or how well schools taught - it was enough to ensure that education was provided.
James Callaghan's Ruskin speech of 1976 began the Great Debate on school standards, with his questions about whether the education system was really meeting the needs of employers and society. But even from here on - through the National Curriculum and the birth of Ofsted - the focus was on what every school ought to provide - a sort of basic minimum standard.
Over the last 60 years, a fundamental recasting of industry, employment, technology and society has transformed the requirement for education and training - not only driving the education system, but introducing new ideas about lifelong learning, personalised education, and self-directed learning. And the story has been of taking a system designed to deliver a basic minimum entitlement and elaborating and elaborating it to respond to these increasingly sophisticated (and rapidly changing) demands.
For some reforms, at some times, it has been necessary and right to take a fierce grip and deliver dramatic change quickly to make right a problem in the system. We will never apologise for the directive action we took, for example, on literacy and numeracy in 1997 - it put right a national scandal of low aspiration and poor performance. But once the basics are in place and we want to move beyond them towards excellence, we need a new sort of system that is not based on the lowest common denominator.
The central characteristic of such a new system will be personalisation - so that the system fits to the individual rather than the individual having to fit to the system. This is not a vague liberal notion about letting people have what they want. It is about having a system which will genuinely give high standards for all - the best possible quality of children's services, which recognise individual needs and circumstances; the most effective teaching at school, which builds a detailed picture of what each child already knows, and how they learn, to help them go further; and, as young people begin to train for work, a system that recognises individual aptitudes and provides as many tailored paths to employment as there are people and jobs. And the corollary of this is that the system must be both freer and more diverse - with more flexibility to help meet individual needs; and more choices between courses and types of provider, so that there really are different and personalised opportunities available.
In order to manage this increasingly diverse and personalised system, we need good leadership and high professional standards at all levels. We also need collaboration and partnership, so that diverse provision isn't incoherent or bitty, and so that people can get seamless services. And this cannot just be a partnership of state providers - the voluntary and community sector, business, and private enterprises need to be part of this partnership to provide joined-up services.
This joining-up needs some local brokerage to make it work. But it implies a completely different kind of local system. Local government and local agencies must offer leadership and strategic direction - with really smart accountability - but the energies of the system can no longer be tied up in compliance or defensiveness. They must be focused on excellence. The people our whole system depends on - those at the front line - must be given the freedom to shape and reshape the offer to meet different and changing needs.
The result will be a nation where:
-
every child gets the best possible start in life - with integrated services focused on the needs of parents and children, not chopped up according to provider;
-
every primary school offers high standards in the basics, but in the context of a broad, rich and enjoyable curriculum;
-
every secondary school offers excellent teaching, an exciting curriculum, and a positive and attractive environment;
-
all schools are extended schools; community schools; healthy schools; inclusive schools; and enterprising schools (with real links to business);
-
at 14-19, every young person has a pathway to suit them that fits them for work, further learning, and for life as an adult; and a wide range of activities outside school or college to enjoy and take part in;
-
every child and young person who is in difficult circumstances gets the extra support they need without stigma;
-
adult learners can all get and build the skills they need for success in employment - because employers are in the lead in designing and delivering training, working with highly responsive colleges;
-
our nation benefits from a thriving university system that gives excellent teaching to all with the potential to benefit; which provides the nation with world-class research capability; and which works with business to provide the skills the nation most needs and to translate research into innovation effectively.
And where:
-
the parts of the system are (and are seen as being) interlinked and interdependent - not just because each builds on the last (with primary schools dependent on effective early years education, secondary schools dependent on primary schools and so on) but in much more creative and dynamic ways - with business involved in designing employability skills education right from 11; with universities designing schemes for students in schools that both help with their outreach and give new experiences to children; with schools and colleges working together to offer routes from 14; with adult learning and childcare delivered together; with children's services and education seen as part of one whole;
-
the learner is a partner in learning, not a passive recipient - and this means that (especially as they grow older, leaving compulsory education) they have a stake in and a responsibility for their own learning;
-
adult learners, employers and the wider community contribute to the education system and to children's services so that they can get more out of them, and can shape them to meet their needs and the needs of the nation.
And all of this depends, as we have set out, on a radically reshaped system for delivering education and children's services, and in particular a reshaped role for Local Government and for my Department, moving away from direction towards an enabling and empowering role. It depends on freedom for those at the front line to personalise services and to improve them. And it depends on Ministers like me holding our nerve and being able to resist the lure of the next initiative in favour of a system that drives its own improvement more and more.
Charles Clarke
Download the document:
Word
(417kb)
PDF
(1.70mb)
Download the document:
Word
(417kb)
PDF
(1.70mb)
TSO publication:
Published by TSO (The Stationery Office)
and available from:
Online
http://www.tsoshop.co.uk
Mail, Telephone, Fax & E-mail
TSO
PO Box 29, Norwich, NR3 1GN
Telephone orders/General enquiries: 0870 600 5522
Order through the Parliamentary Hotline
Lo-Call 0845 7 023474
Fax orders: 0870 600 5533
E-mail: book.orders@tso.co.uk
Textphone 0870 240 3701
TSO Shops
123 Kingsway, London,WC2B 6PQ
020 7242 6393 Fax 020 7242 6394
16 Arthur Street, Belfast BT1 4GD
028 9023 8451 Fax 028 9023 5401
71 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH3 9AZ
0870 606 5566 Fax 0870 606 5588
TSO Accredited Agents
(see Yellow Pages)
and through good booksellers
