Press Release

Time to remove school curriculum from government control

4 June 2008

Control of the school curriculum should be taken away from politicians and passed to an independent education commission, says a leading educationist.

But the commission needs to be protected from “government interference”, Professor John White from the Institute of Education, London (IOE) will argue at a conference on June 4. “We need a way of ensuring that the school curriculum is kept at arm’s length from individual politicians’ idiosyncratic preferences,” he will warn.

The conference, at the IOE, will mark the 20th anniversary of the national curriculum, brought in by the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA).

Professor White, professor of philosophy of education, will argue for a curriculum based not on subjects as now but on aims that will equip pupils “to lead a flourishing personal and civic life in a modern liberal democracy”.

He points out that the subject-based national curriculum originated in 18th century religious communities requiring “an encyclopaedic knowledge of the manifold glories of God’s universe.” Later this fed into the idea of academic learning as the mark of a well-heeled middle class.

He says: “In 1988 a traditional subject-based curriculum was imposed by the Conservative education secretary with no rationale given for it. This has alienated many youngsters, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

He believes that the government has been moving in the right direction towards an aims-based curriculum but fears that progress has been hampered by political pressures to keep the curriculum subject-based.

In an aims-based curriculum, says Professor White, factual knowledge would still important but it would be subordinate to the wider aims. He contends that this would be more relevant for many pupils. “It should help to keep them motivated and to want to go on with their learning rather than drop out after 16,” he says.

The conference will also address related aspects of ERA, which allowed parents to specify a preferred secondary school, introduced league tables to compare school performance, established primary and secondary key stages with objectives to be achieved in each, and gave schools the option to leave local authority control.

Professor Dylan Wiliam, acting director of the Institute of Education, will point out that ERA was intended to create a market in education through these and other elements. He will argue that while the national curriculum was a good idea, other provisions have been either illusory changes or disasters. Specifically:

Parental choice has been an illusion. Parents have been encouraged to choose schools based on their academic results, but the truth is that these depend far more on the background of the students attending the school than on the contributions of the school.
League tables have focused attention on national curriculum tests and GCSEs, so that scores on these have risen, while scores on international measures of performance have declined. “A generation of students has been sacrificed for no real gain,” he will argue.
Ministers are misguided to focus, as they did in the draft Queen’s speech, on schools getting less than 30% GCSE grades A* to C, because many of these are good schools, getting good results with deprived young people. “If the government is serious about improving the performance of secondary schools, it should focus on those that are not teaching their students very much, rather than those who are getting extraordinary results with children who are a long way behind where they should be when they start at school,” Professor Wiliam will say.
The conference will be introduced by Lord Kenneth Baker, former secretary of state for education, and architect of the national curriculum. Lord Baker will speak on “Why the national curriculum was – and still is – necessary.”

Others speakers include Professor Stephen Ball, “Selling knowledge: curriculum, commercialism and social advantage”; Dr David Crook, “Baker’s days and Baker days: historical perspectives on the national curriculum”; and Professor Tim Brighouse, who will take part in a symposium on the legacy of the 1988 ERA, with Helen Williams from the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Professor Ken Jones from Keele University.

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