For Education its Crunch time!
It is 9:30am on the 20th January 2009. As I write this piece the world is less than eight hours away from witnessing one of the most significant moments of the 21st Century…maybe any century. With the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of The United States of America, the world has a symbol for change that is perhaps unprecedented in history; and boy do we need one.

Globally we stand at a point where three significant threats to the future of our species are marching on relentlessly; the environmental crisis is still to be addressed to any real degree, the racial and social tensions around the world show no signs of diminishing and at the very top of our current agenda is the depth of an economic meltdown that has already cost tax payers trillions in monetary terms let alone the human cost.

And so it is that amidst this fog of uncertainty and instability the Government in England has begun to review and reform the teaching and learning experiences of our children through reviews of the National Curriculum. In 2007 we had major reforms of the Key Stage Three curriculum for 11 to 14 year olds, that was followed with the scrapping of key stage three tests. By the time that this article is published, we should have the final findings of Sir Jim Rose into the review of the primary school curriculum, a review that has already caused some considerable disquiet amongst our friends in the media and across the dispatch box in Westminster. I have been fortunate enough to be involved, at various stages, with both processes and in principle the work that has been carried out by Sir Jim under the guidance and advice of the curriculum team at the Qualification and Curriculum Authority has been refreshing and visionary. It is good that it has been provocative and is stimulating serious debate amongst the education community and beyond. It is about time! However we are still cursed with a system that is led by academics and some senior civil servants who want gentle reform that will not disturb traditional values and accepted norms and as a result, the political will needed to affect the dramatic transformation is stifled.

Our children deserve an education system that will prepare them for their future; a future that is so uncertain, largely because of the actions of current and previous generations. Yet whilst our system remains rooted in the traditional belief that education is first and foremost about academic prowess and the acquisition of knowledge, we will find no real solutions.
We are not alone in reviewing our education system; in the US, educators across a number of key states are working furiously to develop strategies that will undo the incredible damage left as a legacy of the Bush administration’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy, a policy defined by high stakes testing and the huge levels of funding, that were diverted from other areas, to pay for the intensive schooling needed to produce high outcomes. Unsurprisingly, the policy has left untold damage amongst children and teachers and created a suffocatingly narrow school system. In Japan the country embarked on an educational reform programme, to create a harder academic edge, with a high stakes exam approach; after the embarrassment that was caused, when the 2003 OECD PISA league tables of literacy and numeracy performance rated Japan as average. When the second set of tables were produced in 2006 after this dramatic policy change had occurred, Japan had shown little or no gain. Many of Japan’s finest educators are questioning the policy of the last few years and again testifying to high levels of damage, amongst young people and their overall development; particularly in the crucial area of creativity.

A couple of years ago, I had the honour of spending some time exploring the education reform programmes in China; they had embarked on the world’s largest ever curriculum development programme; their review resulted in an education system that was ruthlessly efficient and connected to the national vision; as a result children experience learning that is technically challenging, rich in knowledge, highly intensive and requiring of immense mental stamina. The impact is impressive and terrifying in equal measure; children leave school with an extraordinary level of technical skill but completely lacking in creativity, the ability to question or generate ideas.

Our education system has historically been the envy of the world but like so many facets of British life we have lived on our reputation for far too long; our reputation was born in the Victorian age when our innovation and creativity changed the world. In education ours is a model that is still copied; truth is, it not an appropriate model for a changing climate. As the events on that extraordinary night in November 2008 have shown us, the world is ready for change, it needs it…If our children are to conquer the problems that we have left them, they will need a different kind of schooling; a new approach. So as the debate regarding curriculum development and school transformation gathers pace; please, please, please; let’s stop arguing about what to call the subjects, what wars and rivers we should teach and start the real debate which is how do we develop the culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation that will help us out of the mess that we are in. It is time to use the Obama momentum to build our future through transforming our children’s education.