It is encouraging to see that the Education Select Committee has launched an inquiry which asks the fundamental question: what’s the purpose of education?
Committee chair Neil Carmichael, in a blog on the Parliamentary website, writes: “If you think, for example, that there should be a greater focus on the building of ‘soft-skills’, such as communication skills or team-working, or that our children are over-tested, then here is your chance to have your say.”
These are important points. Three years ago ASCL facilitated a Great Education Debate which asked very similar questions. The consensus that came through the many responses was strong. A balanced education is about so much more than what is covered in an examination syllabus.
Schools already do a great deal to provide students with the sort of enrichment activities which develop “soft skills”. However, the government’s intense focus on academic skills, while understandable, drives schools to over-prioritise examination preparation.
Schools are also constrained by an accountability regime which does little to value the importance of these wider educational aspects and severe funding pressures which further limit the scope for such activities.
It is clear that employers and universities think this is an important topic too. Studies show that businesses often value a range of wider employability skills as highly as they do academic qualifications.
Soft skills are also arguably of increasing significance in a society where jobs are no longer for life and young people must be highly self-sufficient individuals able to adapt to different working environments and cope with ever-changing technologies.
They are also a significant factor in the disadvantage gap. Middle-class families are able to afford to send their children to out-of-school activities such as dance classes, stage schools and a wide variety of sports. Independent schools have the resources and flexibility to offer their pupils an array of enrichment activities.
Such opportunities are less available to low-income families – making it even more important that schools are given more space to incorporate them into the curriculum.
The abilities which are developed by soft skills are often characterised by terms such as grit, resilience and character, and over the past year have been the subject of much discussion. Education secretary Nicky Morgan has recognised their importance with a series of government grants for organisations to work with schools to help children develop such skills.
This is a welcome focus. However, the bigger challenge is how to embed these characteristics into the curriculum so they are a central part of learning rather than an add-on when time and money allows.
We are undertaking a major piece of work in 2016 to develop and test an approach to character education working with a number of innovator schools and will publish the findings next autumn.
Our Blueprint for a Self-improving Education System envisages a broad and balanced curriculum which gives schools more freedom to innovate around the needs of their pupils. We hope that momentum will continue to build in this direction over the next year. The Education Select Committee’s inquiry is a step along that road and we await its conclusions with interest.
- Brian Lightman is general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. Visit www.ascl.org.uk
Further information
What’s the purpose of education? Neil Carmichael MP, December 2015: https://commonsed.blog.parliament.uk/2015/12/03/whats-the-purpose-of-education/