“This country has a serious problem: a large number of people leave the education system functionally illiterate, lacking the basic skills they need to lead an ordinary contented life.” This was how Douglas Carswell began his recent talk to the Conservative Education Society.
Douglas Carswell is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Harwich, is a member of the Education Select Committee, and recently co-authored a book entitled “The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain”. The book includes his views on education policy, and what he thinks a new Conservative government must do to improve the system.
Enlarging on his theme, Douglas said that the country is in this situation despite the millions of pounds poured into the education system. For example: Bishop’s Park College, in his constituency, cost £16m and is the third worst school in the country.
He believed that it should not be the job of government to work out what the best system of education is; governments have tried to do this many times before and it has not worked. For example: educationalists are currently trumpeting synthetic phonics, because it happens to be fashionable at the moment. Public policy should be self-designing - best practice should spread itself.
We need to give power to the consumers of the public services. Control needs to be given to the unit on the ground, the school or college. But if the government cedes control to schools, it would also need to put mechanisms in place for parents to choose between them. He did not believe in a voucher system because it would need a central agency to run it, and when unaccountable quangos are appointed to administer anything, more often than not they have a centre-left bias.
Douglas Carswell’s proposal is to put two Bills through Parliament: the School Freedom Act, which would allow governors to vote by a majority for free school status, and would then free them from the National Curriculum and the schools would be run as the governors wish; a second Act which would give every parent in the country the legal right to receive their share of the money allocated to the education system.
Douglas said that four reasons are usually quoted as to why parents should not be given this choice.
1. The public are not clever enough to decide, to make a properly informed decision.
Answer - The market regulates itself; there only needs to be a minority of people who are experts in the system.
2. The postcode lottery.
Answer - There is already a postcode lottery; a free system would improve people’s ability to choose.
3. Inequity.
Answer - There is already inequity; the market is good at ensuring standards, government isn’t.
4. Government involvement is needed to ensure high standards.
Answer - Why? Professional institutions control other types of qualifications, for example vets and architects, and maintain high standards.
Douglas Carswell said school examinations needed reform, with an end to the state-run system. Public examinations for schools were formerly successfully controlled by the universities. Under the current regime, there is competition amongst the examination boards, but the league table culture stops bad boards from going under as schools choose easier exams to improve their position in the league tables. International Baccalaureates are attractive and regarded as worth having, so people are willing to pay for them.
Douglas ended by saying that claims are always made that there would not be enough places in good schools for a system of choice to work, but, if there were unsatisfied demand, new schools would open.
We would welcome comments on the above, which we will pass on to Douglas Carswell.