ASCL President Carl Ward will today (Friday 9 March) call on the
government to liberate schools and colleges from the short-term
cycle of parliamentary politics and develop a shared long-term
plan to give children the education they will need in the age of
automation.
In his opening speech to more than 1,000 delegates at the annual
conference of the Association of School and College Leaders in
Birmingham, Mr Ward will say that education policy is “inherently
unstable” because of frequent changes in governments and
policies.
“This ministerial merry-go-round and its accompanying carousel of
changing policies and directional swerves is a problem. It’s a
problem because education is not short term. Children spend
longer in primary school than most governments spend in office,”
he will say.
And Mr Ward, who is the chief executive of City Learning Trust, a
partnership of schools in Stoke-on-Trent, will set out a proposal
for schools and colleges, businesses, and the government to work
together to develop a long-term plan.
He will say: “This is not a power grab.
“It is an attempt to establish a different way of behaving which
reconciles the entirely proper role of government in setting
education policy, with the need to ensure that policy serves the
long-term interests of the country and its young people. To break
free from the short-term cycle of parliamentary politics.
“A properly evidenced, co-constructed plan for education is not a
threat to government, it is an opportunity.
“To build an enduring legacy.
“A plan for education which is durable, which is predicated on
insight and evidence, which has cross-sector buy-in. And a new
approach to constructing and implementing policy which will
continue to serve the nation well, long into the future.”
Mr Ward will say that such an approach is essential in ensuring
that young people are equipped with the skills and knowledge they
will need for a future in which digital technology, robotics and
artificial intelligence will play an ever greater role in our
society and the wider world.
And he will emphasise the vital role of the business community in
developing that vision.
“The insight of the business sector in helping us to understand
the knowledge and skills that the country will need in 10 years’,
20 years’, 30 years’ time, is essential in building an education
system that is fit for the future,” he will say.
He will also say that long-term planning would help to create a
more stable education system in which change is better managed.
He will say: “What has happened over the past few years is quite
frankly, ridiculous. Setting aside whether the reforms have been
wrong or right, their sheer weight and complexity has placed
intolerable and unsustainable pressure on schools, teachers and
leaders.
“Every single GCSE has changed. Every single A level. The primary
school curriculum and Key Stage 2 assessment. Performance tables
overhauled and rendered quite bewildering. The entire
architecture of the education system transformed, fragmented and
put into a state of flux. Any one of those reforms would be a
major undertaking. To have embarked upon them all at the same
time has been madness.
“The consequences are all too clear. We are mired in a teacher
recruitment and retention crisis which is fuelled largely by the
negative perception of our profession caused by this blizzard of
change and workload which has gone into overload.”
He will say that the proposal he is outlining today would help to
establish clear goals, and an orderly process for getting to
those goals. And he will announce that ASCL will be working over
the coming year with partners, including business leaders, to
discuss further the development of a long-term plan for
education.
