Education – Blair’s poisonous legacy

Can you name the Shadow Secretary for Education? No? Not a single person I’ve asked can and some of those are teachers, some even staunch Labour supporters. How has it come to this?

The answer is to be found in Tom Bower’s excellent book on Tony Blair - Broken Vows. It’s brilliant. Forget Chilcot – this book reveals so much more about Blair and why Labour Party commentators feel as though they’re watching a slow-motion implosion. Prior to this, Polly Toynbee wrote a critique of the Blair years, The Verdict, its successes and failures. It was good book, a balanced summary. What it also revealed was that most of the failures were either Blair’s own idiosyncratic beliefs or his undoubted ability to persuade, pick and promote people who reflected those personal beliefs. Much of the rest was actually quite good.

This was certainly true of his now obviously flawed forays into Iraq but it is even more obvious in his legacy in education – basically a neo-liberal policy that opened the door for diversification of schools, faith schools, obsession with testing, their separation from state control, doomed pilots and projects (truancy, literacy, numeracy), ILAs, the introduction of fees in Higher education and the continued destruction of vocational learning. For these wondrously wrong-headed moves, we have Blair, and Blair only, to thank.

Remember the painfully shy Estelle Morris, who at least had the good grace to resign when she could no longer take Blair’s diktats? Remember Charles Clark with his white heat of technology initiative – eh… whiteboards? Remember Ruth Kelly and ILAs (Individual Learning Accounts)  – which collapsed under the weight of massive fraud? Brown hated the idea and it became a Blair project that existed only to stymie his rival. Remember David Bell who warned Blair about the divisive and odd idea that faith schools reflected diversity, when all they did was divide? Truancy projects that failed miserably. Literacy and numeracy initiatives where huge sums were spent with little or no impact. The mantra was ‘choice’. If only we gave everyone more choice, which simply opened up a market for education where the sharp elbows of the middle classes went to work, as they always do, with a ferocious elbowing aside of the people who needed help the most. This has, in the end, led to from free schools to academies and now t the resurrection of the Grammar School nonsense. None of this would have happened without Blair.

More recently we had Tristram Hunt, a hapless a shadow Education Secretary, who simply reflected what Blair had initiated and went along with what Gove had completed. Ignoring the working class needs on vocational education, despite the fact that the majority of kids do not go to University, he was clueless. Two elections lost and a working class vote that has been betrayed by ignoring their plight.

How did we come to a position where a Conservative government has had more progressive policies on vocational learning than Labour, namely, the apprenticeship levy? Labour stood by while progressive policies, in Conservative manifestos trumped them.

The Blair legacy was an army of technocrats who confused student politics and bookish views with the real world. They were hired, groomed and selected, with a tremendous sense of entitlement. This went on and on with the idea that having NGO experience on your CV meant you had been in the middle of the class war. No – it largely meant a comfortable sojourn and almost no contact with typical, Labour constituents. I saw this in my own constituency, where a good, local MP, with a healthy majority retired, only to be replaced with two candidates who were ‘selected’ not so much for the abilities, as their CV. They lost – badly. This Blair legacy has lost Labour the last two elections. The empirical evidence is now clear. First, in Scotland, Labour has already imploded, as other, fresher politicians land-grabbed. Even the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party demands more respect. Second, Labour lost the last two elections, which clearly shows a long-term rot. Third, Brexit proved that Labour had now officially disengaged from their traditional voters and working class concerns. This all adds up to an existential threat, as Labour fractures down the middle, slogging it out over footnote issues such as anti-semitism and rule-book changes, while the world around them ignores their petty domestic disputes.

I’m no Corbyn fan and O’Connel is a liability but Corbyn’s education policies are quite good, with a core idea being a NES (National Education Service) like the NHS. What I’d like to see is a move towards all schools being secular, drop charitable status for fee-paying schools, force HE to cut costs rather than raising fees and a massive push on apprenticeships.

PS

Her name, by the way, is Angela Raynor, a more invisible and lightweight Shadow Education Secretary is hard to imagine.

10 Corbyn education policies that actually make good sense

I’m no Corbyn fan but his BIG idea in education (NES) is way beyond the pale, insipid Tristram Hunt policies that typified the last Labour leadership's educational policy. I was highly critical of Hunt's approach. Actually, it wasn’t a policy at all. They decided to keep the issue off the political canvas, as they largely agreed with the Conservatives. No difference, don’t mention it. Thankfully the hapless Hunt has resigned. But what does our Jeremy really promise in education? He outlined his ideas here but I've speculated a little, based on past pronouncements and alliances.

1. National Education Service

In his acceptance speech he thanked the "Socialist Education Association". Their ideas have informed his policy. It was they who want to  ‘develop a single, broad and inclusive framework for the curriculum from early years to adult education’. The emphasis on a universal (comprehensive) system, with equality of opportunity at its heart, is exactly what this organisation recommends.
So what is the National Education Service? Corbyn equates it with the National Health Service - free at the point of delivery. So far, so good. This is a fine idea. The world of learning is like the separate horizontal layers of an old, stale cake. Pre-school, primary, secondary, sixth form, FE, HE, adult learning. Yet individual learners go on a vertical journey and have to smash through each of these horizontal layers in turn, often failing, getting disillusioned and the net result is a system where nobody’s happy – learners, teachers or parents. We need to see learning as a lifelong experience, like health.
It may also align education with health in another fashion, with a focus on evidence-based teaching and learning. We have long compared education with medicine, showing that one has advanced while the other has remained largely static in terms of both delivery and outcomes. Here's an opportunity to take the research and professionalisation agenda seriously. The problem he faces is that teachers want professionalisation but then go all woozy when it comes to professional standards and a research and evidence-based approach to teaching and learning. You want to be like the NHS, then make the whole thing student-centred, in the same way that health is patient-centred.
The NES needs to be fleshed out. How will it be funded, run and organised? He has to reconcile his belief that Local Authorities should build and run schools v a NES. You can do what is currently done with the NHS - directly funded by Government, lots of control, appoint a CEO, free at point of delivery but with professional bodies, such as NICE, recommending and publishing guidelines (Ben Goldacre has written smartly about the need for a NICE model in education). A second model is the BBC-type model, where you set up a separate Trust, at arms-length from Government. This is unlikely as control is what they want and probably need, to get things done. A third model is a highly devolved model back to Local Authorities but this is dangerous as many could be hostile. Unfortunately, that's the chosen model, bringing all free schools and academies under local authority or Mayoral control.
But remember also, that it is not possible to have a ‘National’ Education Service. What he means is an 'English' Education Service. Scotland, Wales and NI, long disgusted by the political shenanigans in England, have long gone. Nevertheless there may be room for more alignment, as this is the model they sort of have elsewhere.

2. More vocational

It also unifies the funding. I’m in favour of unifying educational funding as it oils the wheels for more rational decisions, especially the balance between academic and vocational. HE has had its own way for too long. It’s bloated and over-funded. We need to rebalance HE with a stronger approach to vocational. Curiously, Corbyn is more aligned with the Conservatives and their 3 million apprenticeship promise at the last election. But his view of apprenticeships is not one of being employer-led. It would be accredited by FE (that's weird) and employers. This is a bit fuzzy but there is a clear need for a properly defined and funded apprenticeship system, which to be fair, the Conservatives have structured through a levy. It has cross-party appeal.  The good news is that he really does value ‘skills’ and wants to stop the deep erosion of FE and the adult skills budgets. It's anti-Blairite and it's right. One sad footnote - he wants to pay the minimum wage to apprentices - this is not necessary. To create a viable system we neeed to recognise that overloading it with costs is unwise.

3. Scrapping University fees

He wants to scrap fees but also reintroduce grants. This is par for the socialist course but it has consequences, not least the subsidising of the rich by the poor. The majority of young people do NOT go to University and there's growing evidence that the Blair policy didn't work as it crushed alternatives to the expensive HE path. Yet this is the only Corbyn policy that gets any attention in education, as the middle class have sharper elbows - that's a distorted shame.

4. Online education?

He’s a fan of the Open University, saw it as a socialist triumph, and talks about it fondly and explicitly as a great Labour achievement. Good on him. I agree, and hope that he will expand on this online approach to education. Tom Watson's a digitally sophisticated politician and really does get this stuff.

5. Get rid of charitable status for private schools?

Keiza Dugdale, Corbyn’s emissary in Scotland, has hung her hat on this policy in education and I’m sure Corbyn agrees and will attempt to do this south of the border. This is long overdue. The Conservatives and, unfortunately, the hapless Tristram Hunt, was in thrall to this elitist system. It's unlikely they will call for its abolition but we do have to see them as the businesses they are and recognise that they are a major force in creating inequality.
6. Scrap Grammar Schools and 11+
He want to scrap all Grammar Schools and the 11+. Indeed, this was romoured to be the cause of his divorce. This has long been a stupid anomaly in England and causes no end of chest beating in the Conservative Party. David Willets, one of the smartest people in the Conservative government, was sidelined and eventually sacked, just because he held this belief, so it is not a mad, loony-left policy but a mainstream belief. Good policy, let's get it done.
7. Fewer tests
Fewer tests! Thanks God. This taps into the widespread view among teachers and parents that this has got out of control. However, the hard-left have a habit of sticking with centralised state-control in education , so don't hold your breath. The SNP, north of the border have just introduced another raft of testing.
8. No league tables for schools
Yipee. Again this taps into the zeitgeist about education being a right, not a competitive market. We don;t have league tables for hospitals, nether should we for schools. Education is far too important to turn into a competitive sports spectacle.

9. Single examination boards?

My guess is that he’d also unify examination boards, A Gove idea but a good one nevertheless. It’s what they have in Scotland and makes a NES that much easier to implement. the current boards can barely handle the quality control necessary for an efficient system and every year we have unanswerable or stupid question items. Schools also cherry-pick (on what basis I wonder?).

10. Corporation tax

On costs he wants to add 2% to corporation tax. This is reasonable, and matches the ‘levy’ the Conservatives want to load on to employers for apprenticeships. In many ways this is easier to implement and redistributes profits into training. The problem here is that this raises only £3 billion. This nowhere near covers what Corbyn is proposing. So, as usual, the policies are not costed.
Ministers
One worry I have is that, in education, Corbyn has a pretty dismal personal record. He was pampered through fee-paying prep and boarding schools but only got two E grades at A-level. (You get an E for turning up.). He then dropped out of his University course for disagreeing with his tutors. Wow. 
Also, Lucy Powell, appointed Shadow Education post, is an apparatchik politician - school, Oxford, party HQ, assistant jobs, MP. Far from stellar, she's a bit of a Labour clone. On the upside Angela Eagle, who should have this portfolio, is a formidable and capable politician. BIS has always been badly run with lacklustre civil servants. It needs a shake-up.

Conclusion

At least it’s a bold idea, roughly in line with what many want. But to pull this off you have to centralise funding agencies (a good idea) and save costs. Yet, the idea also brings in its wake the usual quango-building. Corbyn is unlikely to go for a merger approach, so we’ll likely end up with a profusion of bodies with a large administrative centre. That’s worrying. Bureaucracy may be its downfall. One last point. Why is almost everyone in education ignoring these policies, other than student fees? Is the teaching profession sweeping actual policies and reforms under hte carpet with a focus on the one polocy that affects their kids - University fees? A conundrum.

Apprenticeship levy: 8 potential pitfalls but it's a game changer

No one predicted the apprenticeship levy in the budget, the Conservatives out-manoeuvred Labour by legislating for a levy on large employers. The truth is that Tristram Hunt was Labour’s Achille’s heel. He knows nothing about vocational learning, just another public schoolboy and academic, dislocated from the reality of the majority of young people, who do NOT go to University. I’m not speculating here. I spoke to him personally on this issue before the election – he was clueless. The truth is that this is a productivity issue, alongside the recognition that the academic route is not for everyone and that the strongest European economies have adopted this models. Tom Wilson, the Director of Unionlearn, called it a game changer. It is. But there are potential pitfalls.

1. Feed from schools

There’s some irony in the fact that Alison Wolf, who recommended this policy, was also responsible for abolishing a huge tranche of vocational learning in schools. With a succession of Labour and Conservative Education Ministers hostile to vocational learning in schools, the EBacc has all but led to its disappearance. We can insist on academic qualifications for entry into apprenticeships but this will be a hindrance for many, not a help, especially in Maths. The solution is a functional maths alternative.

2. Quality control

Apprenticeships are not trivial. They demand quality control. There’s background theory and knowledge, actual practice in the workplace, as well as attitudinal and pastoral issues. In many ways it’s more complex than degrees. Additionally, they’re sector specific. We’ve had the trailblazers in some sectors, which act as exemplars but there’s much more work to be done. The important thing is to stick with it and not get too critical too early. Mistakes will be made but we owe it to young people to get this right. An apprenticeship needs to be structured with good support for students. These are young people who need guidance and support, not treated as cheap labour. We need the best of employer training and practice, as well as strong educational components. There has to be adequate regulation, namely an overseeing body, to keep everyone honest.

4. Brand through accreditation

Credible accreditation matters in terms of employer, parent and student acceptance. We need to create a credible currency, whether its independent accreditation bodies, such as City & Guilds, educational institutions or employer accreditation. It’s a matter of building the brand to sustain effort into the future. This is all about seeing apprenticeships as a viable alternative.

5. Money matters

The levy levels the playing field. If you don’t have apprenticeships, you either do them, or pay, so that there are opportunities for others. It will be interesting to see whether this will be linked to revenue, profits or payroll. We don’t how much the levy will be or how it is to be collected (suggestion is 0.5% of payroll: £2 billion). It has to be high enough to pay for the 3 million apprenticeships promised by 2020, without the Conservatives resorting to statistical jiggery-pokery, to get to that figure. 3 million apprenticeships over 5 years needs a lot of money – billions (plural) not millions.

6. SMEs

One immediate problem is the large company focus. Our economy is also driven by small and medium sized companies. One would hope that opportunities are also available in this context. This is not easy but selected criteria, around high growth, high productivity sectors, may allow some of these to participate. The public sector also has to respond.

7. Technology support

There is a real opportunity to use technology to manage apprentices, who are in many different locations. This is not just tracking but supporting them and spotting potential drop-out. There’s also an opportunity to get scale on the delivery of content. This is not blue-sky, as it’s already been implemented in pools of excellence. To ignore technology is to ignore the present.  The point is not to recreate the apprenticeships of the past but those of the future.

8. England only

This is employer-led but as the levy only applies in England, and many large companies operate across the UK in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, how will those countries respond. It could lead to a drain of apprenticeship activity towards England. It would be great to think that these countries would adopt this policy but they won’t. Interesting tensions here.

Conclusion

I welcome this policy. The idea that forcing everyone into HE is the route to higher productivity is patently false. Our productivity has stagnated in the face of substantial increases in HE student numbers and graduates. We have ignored the majority of young people for decades, leaving them to an underfunded FE system, a truly awful career’s service and the vagaries of the market.

There’s no real problem with the idea of apprenticeships. My nephew and his parents were delighted when he got one in a large company in Scotland. The problem was that he was only one of three, from 588 applicants. The demand is huge, the supply pitiful. Where there’s market failure on this scale, the government has an important role to play. We need to grab this opportunity, shape it and not get bogged down in petty carping. The left must see this as an opportunity and not a form of cheap labour or, as New Labour did, as non-aspirational. The right must not play games and do this on the cheap, with holes that allow employers to exploit the system. Evidence from abroad shows that it needs co-operation between employers, government, training providers, accreditation bodies and unions. So come on CBI, don’t be such a bunch of stupid sceptics. There’s a lot of good people who want to make this work.

Nicky Morgan – sheep in sheep’s clothing

The truth is out. Nicky Morgan, who became Secretary of State for Education only as a result of a Cameron/Gove spat, is a sheep in sheep’s clothing. Don’t take my word for it. Anthony Seldon, a Gove acolyte was scathing about her in The Times, claiming she knew nothing about schools and was quite disinterested in the portfolio, unlikely to make any mark and be gone after the election. And that’s from a man who is the progenitor of her ridiculous ‘Character Education’ initiative. Who needs enemies….

Sure, she didn’t ask for the job, isn’t really interested in the job but why pass over Liz Truss, who at least has some experience? Morgan has, by default, been given the image of the cleaner who came in after Gove to clean up the gallons of blood let on the floor and calm everyone down after he tried to dismantle the education system and replace it with rapacious Academy chains and a diet of Latin. Nevertheless, Ministers need to make their mark and her mark is notably absent. Her first conference speech was a hollow affair. Education policies, especially the pupil premium linked to school meals but also curriculum reforms and free school funding is a shambles. Her poor grasp of maths has let to the 'bell-curve' ridicule. She continues to underperform looking more and more like a rabbit stuck in the headlights. She’s a name, a cipher, not a leader.

Minister for straight women

Not a great pedigree, I’d say for someone with the Women and Equalities portfolio but, astonishingly, she voted against same-sex marriage. Then, oh what a surprise, she had a Damascene conversion.  This showed more than a touch of duplicity. It showed a career politician who puts progress above principles. Don’t be fooled, this is a politician on the make. Beneath the dull exterior lies an old-fashioned, Christian moralist. Politicians who do U-turns of convenience are NOT to be trusted.

Poor at maths

The hapless Morgan has form on poor maths. She got into trouble for making, what was more than a schoolgirl error, on presented figures to Parliament, claiming that a third of all kids under the Labour Government had left school unable to read or write. This was wrong-headed nonsense. The head of the UK Statistic Authority had to come came out and publicly place a dunces hat on her head, something they never usually do to a Minister. She was clearly in over her head, as she confused Levels and failed to grasp what the actual statistics really meant.

This FAIL in maths should come as some embarrassment to the Minister who claimed that pupils should focus more on maths and sciences, not the humanities. If only her PPE bosses has taken her advice. In December, she was also caught out by a 10 year old who asked her, on Sky News (see here), a basic GCSE question, ‘What is the cube root of 125?’. She refused to answer – twice. Maybe she needs to do some of that rote learning she's loves so much? The times tables farrago was her low point. Policies based on whim, another sign of a lack of intellectual depth.

Character education

But if there is one thing that has marked her out as different, it’s ‘Character education’, an old, long-discredited idea that has no evidence to support it, other than the views of public school types whose education policy comes down to ‘if only everyone were like us’. For Morgan, this seems to come from her Christian background, For ‘character’ education read ‘moral’ education. If character is exemplified by Gove & Morgan, then I’d march up to the school and demand that my kids exercise the right to not attend the classes. For a more detailed analysis of this issue see ‘Character Education– an assassination’.

Nicky & Tristram

She grew up in Surbiton - surely the only duller sounding name in the UK is Slough? Public school, Oxford – became a lawyer, every bit the professional politician we’ve come to see as careerist and disengaged from voters. To be fair, she did get one thing right, describing Tristram Hunt as ‘vacuous’. In fact, she’s not that different from her Labour shadow, Tristram Hunt, who is cut from the same sheep-wool cloth, devoid of any true understanding, ideas or feel for the job.

Last word….

If I seem to have been harsh here, it’s because I despise this public-school driven drivel, that sees state education as dysfunctional and public schools as models of perfection. This chapter in education policy needs to be brought to a close. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the voters in England continue to to play out their role in Downton Abbey, happy to be subjected to the whims of toffs. This, in effect, makes education, unreformable. 

Character education stays 'in character' poorly researched, conservative nonsense

When a politician such as Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Morgan, Hunt or Hinds talk about ‘character’, my heart sinks. It’s like Jimmy Saville taking a line on sex education – he’s an expert of sorts, just the wrong sort.
In a rather pathetic attempt to build 'character' the Education Secretary has create a 'passport' where you get stamps for going on a treasure hunt, visiting a local landmark or walking along a nature trail.  Three years ago the Department of Education announced funding and awards (£5 million) for the teaching of ‘character’ in schools, when, of course nothing really happened. I thought I had seen it all when it comes to education’s obsession with ‘C’ words – creativity, collaboration, community, contructivism, coding etc. but this is a ‘cracker’. The tendency for education to take an abstract noun (usually a C-word) then, not by providing evidence or research, but simply repeating it ad nauseam, with some half-baked scheme, is now a well established practice.

What is Character?

Well, according to the DfE, it is; perseverance, resilience, grit, confidence, optimism, motivation, drive, ambition, neighbourliness, community spirit, tolerance, respect, honesty, integrity, dignity, conscientiousness, curiosity and focus. One mighty sentence that only a saint or Greek hero could satisfy, so wide a set of qualities that you may as well just say – let’s teach ‘human nature’. There is no common agreement, certainly no evidence-based research, to define, never mind show, what character education should be. The very foundation of character education fails at this first hurdle – the definition of ‘character’. It's everything therefore it's nothing. 
What lies, barely beneath the surface, are the poking out bones of moral and religious instruction. Whenever you hear the word ‘character’ think of these other ‘c’ words - compliant, conventional, conformist. It’s barely disguised moral education. Let’s explore this further. In the UK there seems to have been two different origins for this current bandwagon, one theoretical, the other political. The two feed off each other.

Character and theory

There’s usually a villain and in this case it’s Kohlberg (arguably Piaget). Now I’ve been critical about Piaget elsewhere, and the bottom line is that none of his research and findings has survived scrutiny. So let’s look at his ‘moral equivalent’ Kohlberg. His six stages of moral development were highly influential and teachers were encouraged to use teaching tactics appropriate to these stages. Subsequent research showed that the stages were wrong, so wrong that the very idea of the Kohlberg framework had to be seriously adjusted. However, the adjustments proved so extreme that the framework had to be abandoned in favour of other possible approaches, especially the work of Elliot Turiel who saw that the development process was also massively fuelled by social convention. There was an amusing interlude when Carol Gillighan took a huge gender swipe at Kohlberg in her book "In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development" (1982). She made the reasonable point that his research had only involved males and that Kohlberg was simply reinforcing stereotypical male character traits. She had a point but simply replaced Kohlberg with another set of character traits around a morality of care. It had all gone to pot. Since then, the work of Judith Harris has really put this stuff to bed, as peer-pressure rose to the surface as a primary driver, something the school environment, unfotunately, does all too well, and often badly.

Character and politics

My own view is that the deep, political roots of character education really lie in conservative worries about cultural and moral decline. Every older generation has its views that the world is going to the dogs (or mongrels) and that we must bring back some golden age of high character (usually theirs) to tame this new, feral, non-conformist generation.

In the US the character education movement is often pushed by conservative and religious sources that see the creep of liberal values as equivalent to moral decline. The religious lobby, in particular, has been successful in pushing this agenda. The most recent Federal example was G. W. Bush, who saw it as the sun in the centre of his education reform, and at the state level, it is often an ever-present lobby force with evolutionary theory always in its gun sights.

In the UK we have an entirely different, and hugely influential, stream of thought that comes originally from Thomas Arnold and the public school system. Let’s call it the ‘playing fields of Eton’ complex, but anyone who has experience in the UK system knows exactly what this is. With a hugely disproportionate number of politicians and civil servants coming from a public-school background, this tradition is stronger in the UK than almost any other comparable nation. There is constant pressure to see the state system as dysfunctional and if we could only take some of the magic dust from the private schools and scatter it down upon the teachers in the state system, all would be well. With its all too casual attitude towards pederasty, lack of experience in dealing with students with serious social issues, its filtering out of SEN students and relatively well-funded context, I’m not convinced that teachers in the state system have anything to learn from this tiny layer of elitism, that all too obviously produces condescending politicians with character and values at odds with the population. Astonishingly, this view was also been adopted by Tristram Hunt, a past Shadow Education Minister for the Labour Party, himself public school educated. See more here.

Character as a subject

The DfE talks of “the teaching of character as a separate subject”. Really? There is no evidence for this at all. In fact there is plenty of evidence to show that this has no effect whatsoever. The teaching of character and values, if they can be ‘taught’ at all, is a bold claim.

Let’s start with the big one, certainly the one with the biggest title, ‘Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children’ a report from the Social and Character Development Research Program (2010). It looked at seven SACD programs and 20 student and school outcomes, all on social and character development and concluded that school-based character education programs produce no measurable improvements in student behaviour or academic performance. This was an astonishing result from a large and well designed piece of research. In fact there are no peer-reviewed studies that support the idea that character teaching has a positive, measurable effect.

Character and curriculum

The DfE also talk about integration into the curriculum and wider aspects of a school. But what makes education think that teachers either have more character or know enough about character or have the slightest idea about how it is taught? Are teachers really any more equipped than parents or anyone else in terms of its possession and the ability to pass it on? It is not a criticism of teachers to say - I think not.

Character and extra-curricular

If we’re talking about extra-curricular activities, such as sport and music and outward facing activities, such as community work and volunteering, and the DfE does, then, in my experience, schools are weak on this and that the more recent trend, in Scotland for example, of having ‘Activity co-ordinators’ with links out to professional sports clubs and other organisations is the way to go. This means you have continuity across the long holiday periods and a sustainable path when they leave school. Both of my sons have had high-level sports and musical careers that orginated outside of school and carried on long after they left school. If character development is to be found, there is a strong argument for saying it is more likely to be found outside of the school walls.

Character as conformity

Character and conformity are easily confused. Far from shaping ‘character’ in schools, we should be doing the opposite and encouraging students to question these norms and become autonomous learners, able to distinguish between moral inculcation, based on assumed social norms, from more open tolerant approaches to education. It is by no means clear that the character traits of teachers is the right model or that teachers know what character traits are and how to teach them. Education should be opening young minds up not closing them down. One man's character trait is another man's nightmare - and I use the word 'man' deliberately here.

Character and schools

Character education has been a feature of many totalitarian, religious and repressive systems, as character is moulded to match particular ideologies. In the US this is often a route for conservative, religious education. In China, the Confucian system, strongly character driven, pushes students towards a highly conformist, non-critical form of rote learning. In Islamic states a strictly conformist and literal form of the Koran is used to shape character. Private schools with a narrow socio-economic group is likely to promote character in terms of that group's values. In truth, unless a school system is truly secular (and arguably even then) character education tends to reflect the cultural norms of that school. In the UK, with the rise of faith schools, this has already caused considerable problems.

Conclusion
Politicians love to meddle in educational practice, in a way they would never in say, medical practice. That’s because they think of themselves as ideals and whatever ‘they’ experienced in education must be good for the rest of us. This explains their obvious disengagement from the voters and blindness when it comes to judgments on the role of character in education, even the world at large. Let’s put this rather odd ‘C-word’ back where it came from, in the files marked ‘bad theory’, ‘old-school thinking’ and ‘political conceit’.