Long term answers, or at least part of the answers, to a host of UK and global problems, reside in education, and are deliverable with the right determination and commitment.
TIMES EDUCATION SUMMIT
This summit on 10 May and was reported in the Times the day after. It was the first conference of the Times Education Commission (TEC) which is a team of some 25 successful people with backgrounds in business, education, science, the arts and government, and with input from people such as Kate Bingham and James Dyson to name but two. TEC reports on the state of UK education. Background facts to much of the report include that out of a population of around 65 million, some “nine million working age adults in the UK have low basic skills in literacy and numeracy” (5 million in both); and “the world of education and the world of work are almost more separate than ever”; and “a majority of British businesses felt the education system was not preparing young people for the world of work.”
But it is not just basic literacy and numeracy which is lacking. A considerable number of businesses surveyed for the report recorded shortages of people with the right technological and digital skills; in personal or soft skills such as time management and problem-solving, and of leadership, teamworking and communication skills; and also, a lack of creativity and entrepreneurship. There was considerable concern about the over-emphasis on exams and learning by rote, and that the UK system is not good at preparing students for managing in life.
The report referenced Brett Wigdortz who founded Teach First (a charity which places bright graduates into the most deprived secondary schools): he has now concluded that it is the primary school teacher who is the most vital, because the first five years are the most critical for children. Apparently surveys of disadvantaged children provide evidence that those involved in early education intervention programmes were more likely to finish high school, hold down a job and have higher earnings. If, as is the case, businesses such as John Lewis are having to teach new staff literacy and numeracy, there is something to fix, and it should be doable. But these are just the basics – the real opportunity is the untapped potential of creativity and innovation which needs to be nurtured and developed in more children. It is those types of abilities which have in the past kept the UK ahead of the game, and which will enhance the ability of generations to build successful lives.
Academic learning aside, practical skills which relate to the job and work needs of society, soft skills and technological skills seem to need a greater emphasis in public education of children to equip them not just to manage but to become confident contributors to the UK. Skills need however to be combined with personal strengths such as valuing others, resilience, learning to fail and improving as a result, taking responsibility and self-awareness. A headline in the Times report reads “The skills for life are obvious – we just need to teach them”, and it is not just schools and teachers who carry the responsibility of education, it is parents and guardians first.
THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS
In developing countries when survival and avoiding starvation often loom large, the immediate provision of food and water (that is in effect cash) provides a momentary and necessary answer. Longer term answers reduce dependence on charity and on third party monetary aid, to enable responsibility for self to be fostered: education and skills training, such as in farming techniques, hygiene, digging wells, and producing things others will buy, provide the longer-term answers and reduce dependency, promoting human dignity. Today’s cost of living crisis – especially food and energy price rises and supply shortages – will hit the poorest nations the most, exacerbated by their often corrupt governance. Is it worth remembering that the United Nations considers extreme poverty as living on less than $1.90 a day, currently the experience of some 700 million people worldwide, perhaps now growing due in no small measure to Putin’s devastation.
But in the UK food and energy poverty are not just in the headlines but they affect everyone and especially those unable to fend for themselves. However, for the sake of perspective alone it is worth remembering that UK food poverty is of a very different order to the insecurity in truly poor countries. In the UK poverty is defined mostly as a relative matter, compared to average income, not in absolute terms in general. Some people perhaps in the UK will be making bad choices with their wealth – that is how money is spent – and contributing to their own malaise. Bad choices are often perhaps the product of incompetence, or lack of knowledge or experience, or even of attitude: that is lack of education, or lack of parenting and so of basic skills, problem solving and resilience. In accordance with the often repeated Sherbhert observation, no matter how rich society is, by definition half the population of the UK have below average income and living standards, and always will have!
Food banks are an important resource for those in need and unable to make ends meet, even if short term. They are not a bad thing, and potentially a good way of ensuring focus of people on food rather than simply filling pockets with hand-out cash. They are a notorious vehicle used in the media too by those who wish essentially to highlight poverty and cast blame. It is worth noting that the categories of people who make most use of food banks are single men, and then single parent mothers. Use of food banks is not necessarily proof of impoverishment or anything, as “free” facilities attract a range of people with different motivations. According to Trussell Trust, 24% of households with 5 or more people are food insecure, and among families using food banks, 40% had 3 children or more. Leaving aside people who abuse the food bank just because it is free, is it not right to question how to reduce usage other than by simply giving people cash? Can single men be upskilled? In single mother families, why is the male parent not contributing enough? If he wants to, why does he not? If there was more childcare, could a single mother earn more? Maybe he or she lacks skills to earn income, that is education. If so, greater and better training of practical and soft skills could better the position.
Why too do so many single mothers have children in numbers when unable to feed them? Obviously, the fundamental issue for truly impoverished food bank users, apart from their spending habits, is how can they earn more income? Is the answer in skills training? Is there actually a politically correct censorship in the UK which vetoes any discussion which might suggest that food bank users may have some responsibility to solve their issues themselves – for example might some of them and their children suffer overweight problems, even obesity? The reaction to Lee Anderson MP may be an example of a social attitude which is preventing proper presentation, and therefore analysis, and therefore solutions to food poverty.
LEE ANDERSON – BUDGETS AND COOKING FRESH FOOD
The knee-jerk reactions of criticism and outrage and condemnation at the suggestions made by Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield, about cooking and budgeting were not just foolish but they obscure an important debate, as well as highlighting a weakness in our free speech society: where anything which could be deemed criticism of ordinary or poorer people is frowned upon. Lee Anderson’s experience of poverty, including food banks, and his activism in helping his constituency, as well as his social background including as a lifelong Labour supporter until recent years, give him real credibility. He wants to get at the issues underlying or exacerbating food poverty and cannot fairly be portrayed or dismissed as some excessively wealthy patroniser of the poor. That some people sought to distance themselves from his ideas shows a timidness, or perhaps a negligence, which underpins the failures to debate elephants in the room.
In effect, he said that a lot of people could reduce their reliance on food banks if they had cooking skills and budgeting skills, recording evidence that a meal, which is actually healthy, can be cooked for 30p – the exact amount is irrelevant, but the principle is evident, and his local food bank encourages its users openly to take lessons. Political critics and media virtue signallers, where the poorer are sanctified, characterised him as insulting. But it is perhaps true that being able to budget well, combined with the skill to select healthy foods and then prepare them and cook them, will be more efficient, cheaper, less wasteful and more beneficial; that is compared to buying or getting from a fast-food shop or delivery organisation, or even a food bank, heavily processed snacks or ready meals, full of obesity creating ingredients. The skills to make good choices are worth teaching, and there is at least a debate worth having with real facts and figures. It is not as simple as the sound bite “eat or heat”. That Lee Anderson’s local food bank offers education in cooking seems meritorious not insulting. To teach long-term self-help skills is surely worth considering.
Use of food banks by those in genuine need arises due to shortage of income to meet necessary outgoings and wants. There are two ways to mitigate that, increase income or reduce spending, or reallocate expenditure, making better and smarter choices. The ability to do that can be helped by education. Is it unarguable that if those who use food banks had the right skills which employers want to use then they would earn more money and be more prosperous, assuming they want to be? The answer may include more work, or smarter work.
There have been many ideas floated in recent years about improving life chances and levelling up. The best ones lie perhaps in education, not just of practical or digital skills but also in softer abilities. Apprenticeships, and college may suit a lot more than University. The programmes need implementation not endless debate. If some don’t work then try others, but surely the thing to do is get on with things, not seek the perfect which is often the enemy of the good. But education and learning, trying to upskill, must be embraced by individuals, and when it comes to children by their parents and guardians. The responsibility and resourcefulness and ambition of the individual must be front and centre, and they need to be offered the tools. To the extent those tools are already available, people may need more help to find them.
EDUCATIONAL RETHINKING AND REFORM
People who get left behind generally suffer from a lack of competences, training and perhaps attitude. Are schools and parents failing them or are they failing themselves? Maybe a mix, and its dangerous to generalise as every individual will have a unique story and context as well as DNA. In the UK it is not all about gloom in education. There are a lot of excellent and very good schools at every level, primary, secondary and University, in both the public and private sectors. Yet there are many schools not even regulated. And there will be a lot, that is half, by definition that are worse than the average – so they need to learn from the best schools. And the best private schools need to continue or increase their sharing with communities and opening their doors to the deprived but able. Best practice needs to be spread and shared, but the leadership of schools and teachers need to be receptive to the ideas of others and open to improvement. Good education and skills training depend to a massive degree on the quality of the teachers and their connection with the learners. Most parents will have experienced how notably better a child performs with a good teacher. No matter how good the quality of teaching, it can always be improved and that is within the grasp of every school if they wish to grab it.
The recent Queen’s speech describing the Government’s agenda for this Parliament included a Schools Bill. The Education Secretary of State, Nadhim Zahawi, explained his mission statement as “to make sure all children get a fantastic education and every chance to make the most of their abilities” and “excellence must not be the exception”. The intention is to spread the benefits of the best multi-academy trusts – surely everyone will agree that it is a no-brainer idea to expand the best practices across the nations’ schools, lifting the lower performers to the standards of the highest. However, it is almost certain that numerous educationalists and teachers on the ground will argue tooth and nail about how and what to teach, instead of adopting an open mind to try new things, accept mistakes and failures and learn from them. There is too little of that throughout UK institutions which tend to cover-up and disguise errors and failings. For example, the NHS is said by both Matthew Syed in his book “Black Box Thinking” and now Jeremy Hunt, presumably learning from Syed, to suffer from a culture of denial of mistakes rather than learning from them.
In the same vein Nadhim Zahawi denounces the argument to abolish public schools such as Eton, perceived to provide a good education, with the suggestion (not new) that bringing poorly performing state schools up in standard is preferable to dissolving those private schools which are excellent. A target of the schools Bill is achieving 90% attainment in literacy and numeracy by 2030 at primary schools – yes, laudable, but is it ambitious enough? That such a goal is still a goal and not achieved already tells a story of past failure to deliver basics and for educational establishments to learn from mistakes. Focus however must be on future achievement not past neglect.
It is too early to analyse the schools Bill as the detail is yet to come. It will be imperfect and there will be criticisms: but the sentiments behind it are worthy. As always, the challenge will be implementation. For example, all schools will become regulated as will home-schooling. It is paramount that the interests of children, not dogma, are put first. Implementation will only be possible, as always, with the buy-in of the universe of stakeholders, civil servants, teachers, parents, school leaders, local councils, in all cases of whatever political persuasion. It will be interesting to observe the amount of talk and words around the relevant topics compared to the energy of adoption of ideas.
The marrying of some of the ideas of the TEC conference with the schools legislation may improve the system. Basic skills training for adults, such as cooking and budgeting, as well as work-oriented training, and education for the young which prepares them for work as well as coping with life, such as resilience and taking responsibility, are urgent and immediate necessities for the UK to move forward, not step backwards and not drown in a sea of depression about the cost of living.
To re-quote “The skills for life are obvious – we just need to teach them”.
See also Education :-
Education is Critical to Levelling Up
Freedom of Thought, Speech and Debate
And on Resilience:-
