Fabian's Blog

Gove blunders into a minefield of academic prejudice

Monday 17th January 2011 10:17 AM

Last week we saw the fruits of Michael Gove's latest whim, the publication of secondary school league tables that now include his bright idea of the English Baccalaureate which is nothing more than a comparison of schools by measuring the proportion of pupils gaining GCSE grade C in Maths, English, Science, a modern foreign language and history or geography. It is a measure that has angered schools who were uninformed about the sudden introduction of such an arbitrary measure. It has contradicted many calls for the school curriculum to prepare young people for the world of work. It has devalued the worth of many curriculum subjects that have just as much merit as those in Mr Gove's very little list and it has exposed his narrow prejudice and low expectations of just what he expects of schools. I trust and hope that the idea will attract so much ridicule that the figures it generates just get ignored.

Schools have been working overtime to raise the achievement of pupils. Their success has been great, the proportion of pupils getting 5 higher grade GCSEs or more has been increased enormously and some 75% of pupils now do so. Including maths and science in the measure is more demanding but the proportion has been rising and is now around 55% in maintained schools. Gove's bright idea is applied and, surprise surprise, the figure goes down to just 15.5% and all this is done without any one knowing any less than they did just one year ago.

These are my questions to Michael Gove.

1. Why have you put science, history, geography and a foreign language on such a high pedestal?
2. Why should history or geography count for more in your eyes than many other alternative subjects such as art, religious education, music, drama, English literature, media studies, economics or geology?
   
3. Why do you think it so important for everyone to learn a foreign language when very few of those people who can speak one rarely need to do so in a world where the lingua franca is English?
   
4. Why have you ignored pupils skills in Information Technology that are now as fundamental as English or Mathematics for being able to access future work and learning?
   
5. Why are you ignoring the clamour (from members of your own party also) to school studies that prepare pupils for the world of work and the needs of employers. Vocational subjects such as business studies or information technology have galvanised interest and endeavour from pupils yet they clearly mean nothing to you.
   
6. Given the necessity for Britain to earn its living why did you not add a technology subject to your list? Surely knowing how to design and make in at least one material should be a basic skill?
   
7. Why do you persistently promulgate messages that ignore any idea that schools should be growing the maturity of pupils to be responsible, caring, thinking, and involved law abiding citizens? No doubt you think that those qualities just come from being able to solve quadratic equations!
   
8. Where does your league table sit with your other idea for vocational technical schools for many pupils from the age of 14 years? You will have to think of a pretext for these schools to be exempt from your measure to avoid having egg on your face.
   
   

In my view Michael Gove dreams of the past: for a cosy era that never really existed. He yearns for a return to the days of the old grammar schools for the children that mattered who followed a curriculum that did not matter - just to have attended the right school was all that was needed. I feel for the schools in my constituency who have worked wonders to give pupils success but see their work, and that of their pupils, politically trashed by the willful ignorance and prejudice of an education minister who, at a stroke, has brought his office into disrepute.