It is always timely to consider what is meant by good education. But as every generation of parents, schools and nations seeks to provide for the next in the best possible way, in a rapidly changing world this becomes increasingly challenging. Where should we begin?
Starting out
The first thing I remember learning at school was how to draw the number 8. To my surprise I discovered that an 8 did not consist of one circle sitting on top of another circle, as I had previously thought. With a sense of marvel that I can recall to this day, I learnt that an 8 is correctly constructed by forming the shape of a capital letter S (starting at the top) and then joining the two ends together, all in one movement without taking the pencil off the paper. I must have been three at the time.
That first lesson, learnt under the watchful eye of my indomitable nursery school teacher, reveals a great deal. First, I gained some crumbs of knowledge: there was a right way to construct an 8 â and I knew what it was.1 Second, I had acquired some understanding: things are not always as they appear â the 8 did not consist in a circle sitting on a circle. Third, I had acquired a skill (of limited extent, true): I could actually construct the figure myself. Fourth, I was intrigued: if I had misunderstood the 8, what else might be out there for me to comprehend? There was a whole world of things that I did not know, that I did not begin to understand, that I could not do, waiting to be explored. It was exciting, and rather daunting.
I still believe that the acquisition and development of these four things â knowledge, understanding, skill and appreciation â form the foundation of every good lesson: I was served well, albeit within rather narrow parameters. Undoubtedly that was the beginning of my formal education, the culmination being my final university examinations. But what happened in the interim, and particularly in those years which preceded scrutiny through formal public examination? Was my education simply one lesson after another, day by day, week in week out, term on term, year after year? Does it matter what those lessons were and how they fitted together? Was everything necessary; were some things missed out? Was it particularly good, or could it have been better? And is that all there is to it anyway, just a great pile of lessons, or is there more, a bigger picture of what we mean by education, which enables us to determine how good it is?
Education, education, education
We all know that education matters. As Prime Minister Tony Blair famously announced in 2001, âOur top priority was, is and always will be education, education, educationâ,2 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking as Governor of California, putting it even more directly: âNothing is more important than educationâ.3 Both were echoing Aristotleâs reputed words, even if some of his poetic beauty had been lost en route: âEducation is the best provision for the journey to old ageâ.4 Across continents, across centuries and across cultures, education has been recognised as the most powerful human force there is. Its energy is waiting to be harnessed.
Acknowledging the importance of education in words, apparently we are not shy to provide fiscal back-up for the rhetoric either: in 2017, Her Majestyâs Treasury budgeted education spending at ÂŁ87.2 billion in the United Kingdom,5 well over 10 per cent of total public expenditure. And while UK figures show 6.7 per cent of GDP being spent on educational institutions (primary to tertiary), the figure is comparable elsewhere â 6.5 per cent in New Zealand, 6.4 per cent in Denmark and 6.2 per cent in the United States of America.6 Not only do we commit to making this huge investment in education, but there rarely seems to be a dissenting voice suggesting that it should be any other way.
It is helpful to stop and consider for a moment why this is the case. We invest in education not because we really believe it to be an end in itself, although it sometimes seems to act as such. Rather, we invest in education because we believe it to be an enabler. Education provides opportunities otherwise impossible, for individuals, communities and whole societies. It is the transformational power of education in the lives of persons, families and nations that is so alluring. The UK governmentâs consultative paper of 2016 reflected this, in stating that its âoverriding objective is to create an education system that will allow anyone in this country, no matter what their background or where they are from, to go as far as their talents will take themâ.7 Looking at the broader impact, Nelson Mandela put it this way: âEducation is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the worldâ.8 Education is the primary determiner of the future of society: we believe it can make us better, and in our hearts we all know that matters.
Outcomes and input
A good education, then, is one with good outcomes. Those with an interest in education, from parents to politicians, can see the long-term effects of a good education by the life and career opportunities that it brings the individual, along with the opportunity to flourish as a member of various communities within a competitive world, and the means to make a positive contribution to society. Integral to living a fulfilling life we might include the ability to make good decisions and a certain appreciation of aesthetic beauty, and we may suppose that education will have some part to play in the acquisition of these too. In order to achieve these life-goals, examinations generally need to be successfully navigated, and since these are the most easily monitored educational measures, they receive great attention and close scrutiny.
Good educational outcomes are therefore seen to take two forms: the quantitative (measurable) outcomes such as examination results and career outcomes which can be collated into performance tables if desired, and the qualitative (harder to measure) outcomes including a sense of well-being, opportunity and positivity. The former typically act as prerequisites of the latter, at least to some extent, because quantitative outcomes are the most common gateway to further education, subsequent employment, prosperity and choice. In practice, they may also tend to be prioritised over the latter because school performance is typically assessed on the basis of quantitative data. About both there is relatively strong agreement, however: they are desirable outcomes of the educational process.
Good education exists within the United Kingdom across a whole range of types of schools, as indeed is also the case elsewhere globally. As a country, we can generate some excellent examination results. Individuals leave our schools to attend many of the worldâs most prestigious higher education institutes. Many of our pupils and students go into fulfilling and worthwhile jobs. We can build reliable aeroplanes, create beautiful gardens, invent new technologies and make progress in understanding diseases. By any global measure, we remain relatively prosperous. We also know that the best of our education is itself a global commodity, highly respected and in demand at home and abroad. Yet even apparently objective measures of educational outcomes vary. In 2014, Pearsonâs league table ranked the United Kingdomâs education sixth best in the developed world and second best in Europe9 while the 2016 PISA tests placed the UK a disappointing 27th in maths, 22nd in reading and 15th in science worldwide.10
Even if we could be certain where we sit in the rankings, what exactly is it that contributes to these desired outcomes, that makes the best of our education, really good? Because if we can answer that question, then we can hope to ensure even wider and wiser educational provision generally, and make better informed choices personally. True, we can observe and monitor ultimate outcomes, but it would be very helpful to find a complementary approach which attends to the all-important question of input. Such an approach would ensure the creation of conditions necessary for the cultivation of success, and enable us to recognise them when we see them.
Confidence in what we mean by good education at the point of input would help schools to decide how to respond to the demand that they start teaching computing, or reintroduce craft â should it be one or other, or both (or neither)?
It would help us to know whether we should be timetabling lessons on resilience, mindfulness, grit or happiness, whether we need to attend to learning styles, or teach using IT, or introduce philosophy â all variously and vigorously promoted by different interested parties. If as parents we knew what we meant by a good education, we would know whether it matters if our children know about Chaucer and Coleridge, or can name the capital of Canada, or understand the composition of calcium carbonate, any or none of which may have featured in our own education. And we would know how much manners matter, whether respect should be caught or taught and just how important competitive sport really is. All educational stakeholders, from policy-makers and providers, to practitioners and purchasers, need clarity of thought regarding what makes an education a good education.
Shoes, for example â and why we were right not to get a hat
We know what we mean by a good pair of shoes. Most of us will not buy a pair of shoes at a billionth of our educational price tag unless we are certain that the fit, feel and form are sufficiently good as to serve the desired function â be that fell-walking or high fashion. How much more, when it comes to educating the next generation, should we be certain that the education we provide has the necessary fit, feel and form to fulfil its function? We know what that function is: good outcomes â âallowing anyone to go as far as their talents will take themâ.11 But what form should education take? What will it feel like in practice, and how can we be sure that it fits the context it is serving?
Over the last fifty years or so, rather than addressing these questions directly, in seeking to achieve better educational outcomes the characteristic response of government, at least within the United Kingdom, seems to have been a commitment to improvement through structural change. The UK governmentâs 2016 consultative paper on education was entirely concerned with expanding the ânumber of good school places available to all familiesâ12 rather than addressing any question as to what an education looks like within such schools. While educational systems and structures are necessary to provide, protect and promote good educational opportunities, our shoe analogy would suggest that an over-emphasis on structural arrangements within our educational system is rather like concentrating attention on the details of the shoe boxes and the way in which they are stacked rather than on the shoes inside them: the boxes may well be orderly, robust and even beautiful, but it is what is inside that matters.
I remember going with my mother on the train to London, aged eleven, armed with an inordinate sense of anticipation, to buy my navy-blue school blazer, regulation navy-blue skirt, salmon pink blouses (a colour combination I have not been keen on since), gabardine mac, blue gym skirt and various other sundry items. I still recall the adrenalin-pumping sense of excitement, the feeling of being so grown up, and the sense that soon I would belong to an institute that had its name indelibly and beautifully carved on imposing wooden gates, that seemed (from my perspective) to have been there forever.
We did not buy the school hat (a navy-blue, dome-shaped felt ensemble, with a narrow brim and salmon pink band), my mother guessing correctly that not only would I never wear it, but it would shortly become an obsolete part of the uniform. What we did not realise was that the entire uniform would soon become obsolete as my school changed within a couple of years from being a blazer-wearing girlsâ grammar school to a be-jeaned mixed sixth-form college.
The wind of change continues to blow relentlessly through the corridors of education as a good education is sought for successive generations. In my day, the wind blew us from selective to comprehensive education. Now it would seem to be blowing from state-controlled to independence.
It was the United Kingdomâs Labour government of Tony Blair which, through The Learning and Skills Act of 2000,13 introduced âacademiesâ to England (known at the time as âcity academiesâ). Within fifteen years, despite differently coloured political parties being in office, there were over 5,000 open, this including over 65 per cent of all secondary schools country-wide,14 and in some areas, all secondary schools. Academies are defined by the government as âpublicly funded independent schoolsâ;15 they do not have to follow the National Curriculum and can set their own term dates. Funded directly from central government, academies are run by trusts that employ the staff. Some academies have sponsors such as businesses, universities, other schools, faith groups or voluntary groups. These are explicitly responsible for improving the schoolsâ performance â which is measured quantitatively. Many existing schools have now adopted academy status, but the term also includes âfree schoolsâ, which were founded as academies from the outset.
In 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron stated his vision that every state school in England should become an academy, not run by âbureaucratsâ, as he put it, but instead with the head as âcaptain of...
