The Education Vector

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 17

The Education Vector¶

April 1996

Editor Ian Clark

This Education Vector has been reprinted from VECTOR Vol.12 No.4. VECTOR is the Quarterly Journal of the British APL Association. For more information about the British APL Association, please contact: Sylvia Camacho, [address and telephone number omitted].

Contents¶

Ian Clark
IAC/Human Interfaces,
[address, telephone number and e-mail address omitted]

Editorial¶

Not long ago, all teaching activity ceased at our village primary school. Songs were practised, decorations were cut out and pasted, flowers were planted and the place generally spruced-up by an assortment of willing little hands. Better than boring old reading and writing and 'rithmetic. A visit of royalty? A princess, perhaps, or some other endangered species?

Not at all. The school was due for an OFSTED visit. In deference to the dangerous power of these unpredictable people, the preparations were painfully OTT. In the event one teacher, the best in the school by common agreement among the consumers (the pupils and their parents) decided she couldn't be bothered fooling about at her age. She had more important things to do. Like teaching the children. Lacking the lily-white paperwork on That Day, she was bound hand and foot and cast into the exterior darkness. That is, she was declared inefficient and promptly took early retirement in an attitude of disgust tinged with relief.

I recall Hemingway's account in "For Whom The Bell Tolls" of the dying days of the International Fifth Brigade. According to Ernest, what really finished it off was not Franco and his merry chums pounding hell out of it, for all their support from Hitler with the latest weaponry and aircraft, but an inspector sent round by the high-ups to report on people and practices which were sapping the fighting power of the embattled volunteers. The fellow had the eye of a kite-hawk for growing tips, strong fibre and firm loyalty. Wherever he came across it he made absolutely sure it was lopped off, stripped out and rooted up.

But of course there are those who do, and those who inspect. Belief in the efficacy of more and more voluminous paperwork is a measure of the gap of confidence between the two. I remember, when I was part of a Home Office inspection team, encouraging police forces to pursue their plans to have all beat-officers' reports phoned-in to a team of audio typists. The idea was to enhance their effectiveness by relieving them of inessential paperwork. No sign of any comparable insight by the architects of OFSTED and the National Curriculum, even post-Dearing.

Talking about paperwork reminds me of the passport application I've had to fill in for my daughter recently. Not at all onerous, as official forms go, until you come to the bit where it says "...Section 11 should be completed by a Member of Parliament, Justice of the Peace, Minister of Religion ... and your heart sinks. You begin to wish you'd accepted that invitation to come On The Square all those years ago, when — ah! — it goes on to say "Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer, Teacher".

So that's all right then. Even I know one or two of those. But observe! There it is, in black and white. Her Britannic Majesty's Government giving formal recognition to the fact that a Teacher is a respected professional person, of similar standing to M.P., J.P., Revd.,... and a cut above Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.

Observe something else, too. Nowhere on the form does it say "OFSTED inspector". When a teacher acquaintance saw that, she whooped with joy. She realised she could knock an OFSTED inspector into the gutter, because they're all just nuttin's, aren't they? Is there a professional qualification leading to OFSTED inspector? — let alone a national procedure for measuring their efficiency, feeding into published league-tables? I haven't heard of one. No more than I have for Members of Parliament, much less Government Ministers. But just imagine the exams they'd have to go through. The dissertations they'd have to sweat over. All those neatly-clipped folders full of photos of school lockers, and lists and lists of things to be snooped into.

Now I imagine that some OFSTED inspector will read this and cry "Unfair! My team is hardworking and dedicated. It consists of respectable individuals all highly experienced in their own various fields." All right, simmer down. I'm sure you and your colleagues do the job to the best of your ability. But what is the real nature of your job? Does the teaching profession want its fruits? Even (or especially!) if it is performed with zeal and dedication? Is OFSTED a sort of spiritual leaven to improve the quality of the nation's teaching? Or is it a political commissariat?

It cannot, by its very nature and constitution, be the former. Teaching in our (state) schools is performed, as HMG itself admits, by highly qualified professionals, on a par with Doctors, Engineers and Lawyers. Like these they merit exclusive accreditation and review of their competence by independently constituted professional societies of their peers. Not to be paraded and inspected by official appointees, graded and marshalled worse than the hapless infants they're supposed to find time to be teaching. That is treatment which even soldiers and sailors wouldn't stand for, let alone tinkers and tailors. And other local businessmen, who, by the way, are having a say in the running of schools out of all proportion to their professional standing. If they want to help, use them for what they're good for — putting their hands in their wallets, not their noses outside their own businesses.

Some people have told me that this page is too strong on politics and not strong enough on IT, APL in particular. Now I'm not responsible for the politicisation of education. That agenda has been set by others. So what has all this got to do with IT? What's it got to do with APL? Or J? Quite a lot, as I hope to show next time.