Michael Gove this week has taken his mission to become this coalition’s most hated figure to new extremes after announcing his plan to lengthen school days and shorten holidays.
His cited reason for the educational overhaul is to keep up with the Chinese and not get left behind in the so-called ‘global race’. The manner of Gove’s policy making is currently in the style of a honed buffet veteran, picking and choosing select scholarly portions from a variety of countries with the aim of curating the perfect, streamlined educational dish.
As anyone unfortunate enough to have tried fusion food will know, the outcome is rarely as grand – in picking and choosing pieces from other countries’ schools, all Gove is doing is creating a mismatched system of ideas that will not necessarily work cohesively.
My main qualm with this policy comes from a lack of understanding of what issues he is trying to solve. Gove says that families find holidays hard to deal with and I understand that; for families in which both parents work and for single parents, holidays will be difficult and the idea of breaking up the summer holidays is not a new one. But getting rid of them all together seems absurd. Surely the purpose of schools should be the nurturing of children’s minds, teaching life skills and encouraging the right attitude. These are feats achievable both at school and at home. The Conservative’s education secretary does not seem to be interested in individualism however. His curriculum is heavily centred on teaching children a set of preordained facts rather than nurturing a set of malleable skill directed at problem-solving and initiative.
The whole idea stinks of another overly optimistic directive by an educational dictator, something that Gove seems to be becoming. As much as I can sympathise with parents over the issue of holidays, I am unable to believe a widespread desire for school days to be lengthened exists. The average hours of work have been steadily increasing leaving quality family time to be pushed to the peripheries of the day.
There is also a practical side to the issue. British children, much as British adults, are acclimatised to an 8 hour day. Whilst other countries have education systems that offer more hours, these thrive as part of a national attitude that only generations of regularity can instil. British children, at least initially, will be too tired to teach. I’m not however, completely against the premise. I would love to see investment in after-school activities for example. If Gove were to make provision for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to do more sport or music after school, I would welcome in the reform as a means of teaching valuable skill sets, offering a bit of tranquillity and relieving the strain for over-worked parents. But the only reason he wants children in schools longer is to plague them for another few hours a day with a sterile curriculum that is almost completely void of any creativity. Furthermore, despite what the en vogue negativity felt towards the current system would suggest, a line of thought only encouraged by Gove’s party, Britain’s schools score exceedingly highly on an international scale. If there are schools that can deliver excellent education on the current hours, then perhaps length of day is not the issue.
It is obvious that teachers will be frothing at the mouths with these proposals. As it is only too clear Gove will not expect them to be paid more for their extra work; an expectation in line with the teacher-bashing rhetoric of highly divisive education secretary. With the notions of performance-related pay and sacking those who under-perform being currently entertained, Gove’s plans less resemble education reforms than banking regulation. It really concerns me how far running schools in the mode of profit making institutions will get us; probably to the educational equivalent of the financial crisis. His ideological position is destructive to our education system, offering policy after policy based on ideas, not evidence, and appearing more concerned with returning to romanticised ideal of the past rather than forging the education system of the future. But all is not lost. Among academics and educationalists there is much talk of the second ‘great debate’ on education. The first took place during Callaghan’s government in 1976 and as more and more people get behind the idea, Gove may be forced to listen. Let’s hope together we can win this debate, and bury this educational tyrant and his ideas forever.
Whilst poetic and passionate this article falls down at the important point of fact. Cooper falsely characterises Gove and his policy aims. Quite simply Gove is the least dictatorial Education Secretary in history, transferring an astonishing amount of Government control back to schools through the academies and free schools policy. The longer school day/reduction of holidays, is the idea (as opposed to how you describe it) that schools should be free to decide hours for themselves. If a school in a deprived area sees that over the 6 weeks of summer their students are being left in front of the TV all day, or if parents are struggling to afford childcare as they work 9-5 (unlike the ‘acclimatised’ 6.5 hour a day children), then schools can step in and help – offering sport, music, art and perhaps yes more literacy and numeracy lessons that are urgently needed in our often poorest communities. The only problem I can see is funding, but the government can’t simply not ‘expect them to be paid more for their extra work.’ as you say: the funding will be a responsibility of the individual school. Tip for your next Gove bash – take time to read/listen what the Education Sec is actually saying as opposed to recycling the usual nonsense of the guardian.co.uk. Z
If Mr Gove genuinely wishes to improve schools in this country then he needs to start with teachers- finding out the REAL problem areas & working with school staff to get things done properly. At present it feels as though his policy ideas are a line of best fit through scattered rhetoric & theory.
Mr Gove needs to remind himself that the victims of this monumental disaster will be the children, many of whom already feel that education leads to nowhere in a world of high university fees and youth unemployment.