Michael Gove’s response

January 19, 2010 by
Filed under: Public policy 

Here is Michael Gove’s reply to my July Questions. As I said yesterday, I am very grateful to him for finding the time. Instead of giving my response to his response today – which would make an already long post even longer – I’ll wait until tomorrow, by which time I hope also to be able to draw on comments from other readers.

1. Curriculum content should contain the classical canon of history, literature and scientific knowledge and we should pull back from seeking to make content more relevant to the contemporary concerns and lives of young people. Young people should be discouraged from pursuing newer or non traditional subjects like media studies, which are not seen as credible by the best universities.

MG: I know what you’re driving at but I think the distinction you draw, the “dividing line” if you like, is too stark.

I have nothing against new programmes of study per se. I certainly have no wish to   dissuade any one who wishes to pursue a course in media studies if that is their whole heart’s desire. And I certainly have no bias against innovation more broadly. Indeed our reforms are designed to encourage new ways of thinking and doing. In particular, they make it possible for teachers to play a bigger role in shaping schools, the curriculum and teaching.

The current problem with subjects like media studies relates to the way our league tables work. They encourage schools to push a subject which, currently, actually limits opportunities. 

Irrespective of my views, it’s a fact that some of our best universities consider media studies to be a less rigorous preparation for higher education than other courses. Students who take it up limit their capacity to choose freely between universities. Its a simple truth that a pass in physics or further maths opens more doors.  

But some schools still steer students towards subjects such as media studies because they know its easier to secure a pass. That easier pass will boost their league table ranking. It is no accident that the huge rise in students taking media studies GCSE has occurred in state schools, where league tables matter so much, while in private schools, where the interests and demands of students and their families currently hold more sway, there has been no similar rush to embrace the subject. 

But let me stress again, my aim is to widen the scope of choice available to the next generation. I would like students to choose the course of study which most inspires them, and best prepares them for the future, by widening the range of opportunities available to them. 

In that context, I am indebted to the work of the Scottish social democratic thinker Lindsay Paterson. If you’ll allow me to quote from his essay “The Renewal of Social Democratic Educational Thought in Scotland” he puts better than I ever could what I think is the right approach to take… 

“The anger of radical campaigners against a divided secondary education was because it denied working class people access to a general education; they shared the aim of extending access to the best that has been thought and said… the democratic intellect was to be as much about the intellect as the access to it; and yet policy since the 1980s has rather neglected the importance of enabling students to engage properly with intellectual difficulty and intellectual worth. Instead policy has approached the problem of motivation by diluting seriousness, by fragmenting difficult programmes of study into modularised segments and by trying to divert students into intellectually undemanding courses of ostensible vocational relevance.”

 2. The curriculum should be delivered though traditional subject disciplines and not through approaches emphasising cross cutting themes and competencies, like for example, the RSA’s Opening Minds.

 MG: Again, my view is that choice is what matters, and more schools should have more freedom to pursue the curriculum path which they believe will enhance the opportunities available to their students. 

But, also again I would quote Lindsay Paterson: 

“Programmes of general liberal education are better at preparing people for life as decent citizens than any other kinds of learning. That was something which old radicals understood well. You could make citizens for the new era of mass democracy by equipping them with the cultural capacities which the aristocratic or bourgeois ruling classes had acquired through their schooling. Citizenship should permeate many types of study – literature, history, geography, politics, science, religion.” 

It is instructive that many of those schools with the best record in raising achievement for children from poorer backgrounds – from Mossbourne Community Academy to the KIPP schools in the US follow a traditional curriculum which provides the sort of general liberal education Lindsay admires.

 3. (Something I heard emphasised by your number two Nick Gibb), the practice of the best schools shows traditional chalk and talk forms of pedagogy are superior to practical, project based, forms of learning.  

MG: It is certainly the case that the tried and tested methods of whole class teaching, followed up by personal tuition for those who need it, are highly effective. 

But I am a strong believer in practical learning. I would like to see a bigger place for practical experimental work in science teaching. I believe practical problem solving as part of outdoor learning, whether in geography or sport, is hugely important. And I very strongly believe we need to improve practical education for those who do not wish to pursue academic learning beyond sixteen with much more rigorous and robust vocational qualifications. 

4. Schools should focus much more on the core activity of imparting knowledge. Children’s wider development is best enhanced through extra curricular activities such as schools clubs and societies but not through ‘teaching’ life skills or well-being.  

 Again, I fear the division you’re drawing up may be misleading. I certainly believe that the most important task a school has is giving children the knowledge they need to make the widest possible range of choices about the future and play the fullest possible part in our democracy. To that end the sort of liberal education Lindsay Paterson talks about is the right course to follow. 

But I certainly think good schools will also want to impart, complementary, practical knowledge, whether its cooking, sex and relationships education or basic questions of good manners and consideration for others. I’m not sure I like the term “life skills” but the sort of areas I’ve just mentioned would, I think, certainly come under that umbrella…

 5. Schools should be institutions that are primarily or even exclusively about learning and should not be required to engage in the wider delivery of children’s or community services.

MG: Schools should be about learning, absolutely. If schools wish to offer other services, wonderful. If other services support learning, fantastic. But schools are places for teaching and learning. 

6. Rather than blurring the divide between the academic and vocational learning we should assert it, with, for example, the 14-19 Diplomas restricted to vocational content. 

MG: The Diplomas have had a pretty poor reception so far, but I am interested in seeing how we can make the best of them. 

More broadly, I certainly do not want a rigid divide between the academic and vocational. I certainly want to see more and more students pursuing academic courses for longer, but I also anticipate that many students, as well as acquiring a basic grounding in an academic core will also pursue genuinely rigorous practical qualifications in fields employers value. 

7. Implicitly, strategies to widen participation in learning should not include developing forms of content and levels of assessment which enable more children to succeed: More should rise to the bar, the bar shouldn’t be moved to allow more to jump it. 

MG: The question contains a logical flaw. More children should certainly be helped to succeed. But not by lowering the bar. Instead we should help them to escape the constraints of disadvantage which may have held them back in the past, so they can aim higher.

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26 Comments on Michael Gove’s response

  1. Indy on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 4:17 pm

    2. This feels more moderate than some previous statements by MG, not sure whether that’s due to the better form of exchange (less soundbite oriented) or it reflects the approach of election season.

    I think the logic around the “Media Studies” situation is a bit unclear.
    First he keeps referring to GCSEs and while universities do look at GCSE results, they’ve historically made most of their decisions based on the choice and results of A-Level subjects. GCSEs are for choosing between two candidates closely matched…

    On A-Levels, the reality is that science A-Levels are valued by universities for courses that have science content – and few universities are interested in candidates who achieved a D in Physics… so I’m sceptical about how many candidates are really taking Media Studies but should have been taking Physics.

    Mentioning Further Maths seems rather odd – if someone is of the capability to take Further Maths and not doing so in favour of Media Studies they are surely expressing a lack of interest in science.

    If a candidate has decided science is not for them, you can argue they should be taking History or English Literature (or whatever is more prestigious at the moment) instead of Media Studies… but Gove doesn’t make that argument, presumably because there’s no apparent shortage of History or Eng Lit grads either.

  2. Michael on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 7:38 pm

    3. To me, MG’s answers don’t exactly set out a distinctive position – I am sure I have heard Lib Dem and Labour politicians saying very similar things. OK, maybe they wouldn’t bother with the caveat about the term “life skills” , but that aside…
    But maybe others disagree?

  3. Joe Nutt on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 11:06 pm

    4. One thing MG has done is to really get under the surface of the welter of educational policy, strategy and downright interference which has marked the last decade or more and expose the way it has betrayed a generation of children. The pursuit of fairness has precious little to do with education.

    His attack on the relationship between media studies and league tables for example, is spot on. As the head of an Ofsted outstanding, inner city comprehensive school told me recently, the overwhelming majority of her GCSE candidates get their 90+% A-Cs without ever sitting a single exam. MG appreciates that the exploitation of exam equivalence by shrew heads who know how to play the system they are being judged by, is a dreadful problem because of the educational shackles it puts on thousands of kids.

    The deceitful scam about citizenship education and virtually every other accretion to the core curriculum, has been that they were merely thinly disguised strategies to politicise children. It’s always amused me that the Guardian reader will be outraged at the sight of a nine year old African child carrying an AK47 but thinks it perfectly OK to teach the same child in this country what to think.

  4. grit on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 12:21 am

    5. overall, the questions/inferences present a line that immediately brings about his predictable response; he’s not likely to go, yeah, yeah, sounds right enough.

    so i get the answers i expect. and those are answers which have the same uninspiring lead thump to them that usually accompany unimaginative thinking on education.

    i would agree that in terms of classroom practice, there has been a move towards ‘deliverable’ units of study, as if knowledge comes on a conveyor belt and can be fed to the recipient. inevitably, in that system, knowledge that the child creates will be defined implicitly as wrong, because any off-tempo thinking causes an operational difficulty in the workflow. so i hear his comment that study has fragmented into easy units. but seriously, would mg be able to create a situation which encouraged a free-range, difficult thinking culture? i don’t believe he’d want to create that culture; it’s not easy to control.

    there is not much imagination in mg’s answer for position 3. i want to see much more involvement in the community, with practical projects, real-life interaction, in all subjects, whether academic or not. and i would even argue about any division post-16 into woodwork vs history; i meet insightful academics who realise their knowledge because they make it active and know their subject through practical experimental experience. but this real-world education cannot be brought about in a mass education system, 30 kids to a member of staff, and a safety-first, school-based culture.

    on the whole mg’s comments sounds like wadding. but i guess the people he needs to vote for him don’t really want radical or imaginative insights into education. perhaps he’ll get those votes if folks feel they might be released from the miserable culture of targets for toddlers at pre-school now predetermined by labour, but basically, there’s not much choice ahead.

  5. oldandrew on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 7:48 am

    6. Some of this is sensible: “liberal education”, “the tried and tested methods of whole class teaching” and (best of all) “schools are places for teaching and learning”.

    But all the stuff about “choice” just sounds like an excuse. By all means let people have choices but it’s the availability of choices worth having that makes the difference. Ultimately, there will be conflicts and competing priorities in education and we need to know how the Tories would deal with them.

    Also, is it me, or is the tone of this reply quite different to what he’s been saying elsewhere?

  6. Nigel Rayment on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 8:44 am

    7. It may be that, as it stands, media studies is indeed an easier option than some subjects at GCSE. It is certainly not the case, however, that the body of theory surrounding media analysis is easy. Were MG to call for greater parity of curriculum challenge between ‘traditional’ and new subjects, it would be hard to quibble. Clearly, though, his is an ideological objection rather than one purely based upon standards. To that extent, MG’s apparent concerns about inhibiting working class mobility could be interpreted as cant.
    My faint hope is that MG’s position is designed to appeal to middle England voters and that having won these votes and taken office, the Tories will be forced to listen to and act upon the voices of business leaders, increasing numbers of whom are advocating the need for schools to deliver a different kind of learning – see for instance the Unilever manager quoted in Tony Wagner’s excellent The Global Achievement Gap: why even our best schools don’t teach children the new survival skills our children need – and what we can do about it (2008):
    ‘For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people who either have problem-solving skills or can easily be trained to think on their feet to find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems. We no longer have supervisors who take control … and so we look for a different employee than a few years ago: one with critical thinking, creativity, mechanical aptitude, and a passion to embrace new ideas.’

  7. Joe Nutt on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 10:38 am

    8. Andrew,
    I’ve heard him speak at several events now and I can’t honestly detect anything different in his replies here.

    Nigel,
    I can’t honestly understand why MG’s ideological stance, means his interest in improving the educational experiences of working classkids is “cant.” But perhaps more valuably, I’m intrigued by the link you assume between the needs of business and the needs of children in schools. I have met very, very few teachers, in a lengthy career in the profession and now in business, who would agree such a link exists and I wonder how many parents, of any class, would either.

    I remember how the local secondary modern school close to my home “assumed” every child would either work in the local pit, or at a local pipe factory. Nice way to treat children.

  8. mas on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 10:55 am

    9. @oldandrew I thought so too – sounds very moderate – politically moderate – suspiciously moderate? (Apart from the radical ideas that P.E. could involve practical problem solving, science could have practical experiments and geography could involve outdoor learning!)

    agree with Joes thoughts too (except perhaps that there should be nothing wrong with getting good grades without having to take exams providing the alternative assessment methods are good (not suggesting that they currently are though))

    Nigels quote reminds me of another along the lines of ‘employers hire on hard skills… and then fire for lack of soft skills’….. but then Indys point seems important too – secondary education now is not a be all and end all for the majority of young people, it’s a stage that leads to the next stage of college/apprenticeships/training schemes etc.

  9. Nigel Rayment on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 11:00 am

    10. Joe
    I rather took it from the final paragraph of your previous comment that you didn’t subscribe to the notion that the traditional curriculum reproduces an ideological position.

    Whether or not there is or should be a link between what children learn in school and what businesses are looking for, my hope is that the Tories listen to the voice of business leaders. And that this leads to a curriculum which allows more space for creativity, personal exploration, growth and development. That’s my point.

  10. oldandrew on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 12:00 pm

    11. “Andrew, I’ve heard him speak at several events now and I can’t honestly detect anything different in his replies here.”

    That’s a shame. I had thought him to be generally be more forthright than he is here. Maybe I’m disappointed that he didn’t answer the second point by saying:

    “The RSA’s Opening Minds curriculum? Isn’t that bollocks?”

  11. oldandrew on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 12:49 pm

    12. Hmmmmm.

    Something just occurred to me.

    One issue I care a lot about is the influence of policy on teaching methods. Anyway it occurs to me that there is a strong similarity between Gove’s:

    “It is certainly the case that the tried and tested methods of whole class teaching, followed up by personal tuition for those who need it, are highly effective.”

    and this:

    “We need to combine formal whole-class teaching with targeted help for individuals and small groups”.

    This quotation is from a speech made by Tony Blair in 1995. Of course there is no law against parties having the same policy that their opponents had 15 years ago, but I do wonder if Gove has asked the obvious question as to why his policy is not already in place and what it says about the gap between the formation and the implementation of education policy.

  12. Jo Wiggans on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 2:25 pm

    13. The fence on these issues is wide and already well occupied by those from other parties.

    Does MG see young people as divided between those who are capable of academic study and those who are not? Presumaby, he would then see this divide as organically linked to affluence since the evidence of current attainment is that the schools for the wealthy produce the academically successful. That is, if you accept exam results as a measure of ability, which I don’t because I don’t accept that the social class we are born into defines our potential to learn and succeed. It only defines our opportunities.

    And what, pray, are the ‘best’ universities? Are there some we would as gaily describe as the ‘worst’ universities? Nail your colours to the mast please – both RSA and MG use the term. Would you equally readily name the ‘best’ schools?

    Do we think that young people are only capable of chosing well where their choice is limited? There could be an argument that fee-paying schools are depriving their pupils of real choice, pressing those who would blossom if given a chance for practical/vocational learning into a factory mould that will produce half way decent GCSEs and a permanent failure to benefit from education.

    Picture this: It is February 2010. I’m in Y9, age 13, taking home my list of GCSE options to a doting mum and dad who themselves left school at 16 with very few qualifications. They say ‘we don’t want to decide for you. We are proud that you are doing well at school. Geography and history and French must be interesting for some pupils but we took them and we can’t remember a single thing and we failed the exams. If I were you, I would really consider Media Studies/Health and Social Care/ICT/Engineering etc.. At least then, you will know you’ve got something that will help you to get a job.” Rational and caring advice. Limiting their choices doesn’t help. Better guidance may help. Higher aspirations certainly would.

    It is not the curriculum that is at fault but our collective failure to believe in the potential of our young people.

  13. Joe Nutt on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 2:52 pm

    14. Andrew,
    Point taken (you must have been in the same audience) what I was considering was MGs content rather than his rhetorical style.

    Your point about the two speeches is really enlightening because I think it exposes the very heart of the politics of the last decade. In Campbellson-land as long as you craft, control or contort the words first and then say them loud enough and often enough, things will change. It’s a side effect of the puritan mind which regards any kind of debate as aggression.

    One of the reasons the Tories are the natural partner of the business world is because they both know that to get anything done you need to take people along with you. Am I really that wrong in pointing out there’s been precious little of that in the educational world recently?

  14. oldandrew on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 3:34 pm

    15. “In Campbellson-land as long as you craft, control or contort the words first and then say them loud enough and often enough, things will change.”

    This is what I fear Cameron and Gove believe: that wherever Labour failed it just shows they never really tried and they can promise the exact same things and it will all be different.

    If they think like that then they are doomed to make the same mistakes. Labour didn’t fail because they didn’t mean the words but because bureaucracies set their own priorities, and by the time a government realises they haven’t changed the fundamental nature of things they are already trapped defending the status quo.

    “One of the reasons the Tories are the natural partner of the business world is because they both know that to get anything done you need to take people along with you. Am I really that wrong in pointing out there’s been precious little of that in the educational world recently?”

    Recently? Are you seriously suggesting that’s how it was under Tory governments?

  15. Joe Nutt on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 7:40 pm

    16. Andrew,
    No, not at all. I’m not that partisan. It’s just that I’ve seen it up front and personal ever since I left the classroom, which is just over 10 years ago.

    Although I do think you are being pretty generous accrediting “bureaucracies” for the currently bleak landscape. I just see it as a question of ability and competence.

  16. matthew taylor on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 8:01 pm

    17. Thanks all again. I have posted my thoughts today

  17. oldandrew on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 6:04 am

    18. “Although I do think you are being pretty generous accrediting “bureaucracies” for the currently bleak landscape. I just see it as a question of ability and competence.”

    I’m not trying to say nobody is responsible I’m just trying to identify the nature of the problem. There has been an ongoing problem with changing education. Changes in one direction (dumbing down, dilution of aims, more paperwork) seem to go through fine, but changes in the other direction seem to get obstructed or even reversed.

    Blair’s policy about whole class teaching is a case in point. It is not the case that he mentioned it and then forgot about it or decided he never meant it. What happened was that Blunkett did put it into place in maths and English in key stages 1-3 and it seemed to be a success. Then, with no apparent change of political will, it simply got overturned a bit at a time under weaker secretaries of state who didn’t serve very long.

    I might add (and this is why I’m sceptical about Gove) that these weaker secretaries of state were, in terms of legislation, focused on introducing new types of school and creating competition and diversity. A focus on structures seems to have resulted in backsliding on standards, regardless of what politicians actually intended. It’s no good saying you believe in some sensible things and then making the highest priority a belief in “choice” and going on about structures not standards.

  18. Martin Robinson on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 9:34 am

    19. I’m not sure that Michael Gove completely understands how ‘skills’ are best taught in schools. I also think he needs to address the body of theory and knowledge that comes under the banner of ‘soft skills’, competencies, etc. Lindsay Paterson’s ideas about citizenship permeating the curriculum are right. How we define citizenship and the cultural capital required to be a full citizen is an essential part of the curriculum. Gove needs to define what he understands by this. Later on he seems a bit muddled as to how to define ‘skills’ education:

    “But I certainly think good schools will also want to impart, complementary, practical knowledge, whether its cooking, sex and relationships education or basic questions of good manners and consideration for others. I’m not sure I like the term “life skills” but the sort of areas I’ve just mentioned would, I think, certainly come under that umbrella…”

    Skills education is not the same as practical knowledge. Life skills is not the same as citizenship. Good Manners and consideration are ‘soft skills’, cooking and sex are ‘hard’ skills (sorry about that). Soft skills should ‘permeate’, i.e. be taught and assessed throughout the curriculum in all lessons – these ‘soft skills’ should be the essential ‘cultural capital’ of full ‘citizenry’. “Life skills…” such as cooking should be taught through separate lessons and are therefore NOT ‘under the same umbrella’.

  19. oldandrew on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 11:03 am

    20. “Good Manners and consideration are ’soft skills’ … Soft skills should ‘permeate’, i.e. be taught and assessed throughout the curriculum in all lessons”

    What?

  20. retox on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 3:59 pm

    21. The main point is to guide students to higher levels of achievement, there is certainly nothing wrong with this ambition. However, within state schools how can this be really achieved in the main if teaching processes fall foul of chalk and talk teaching styles, low level qualifications in teaching staff, redundant technologies, increased disaffection, rise in ADHD (or simply boredom in the classroom) and career advisors who have little or no clue to what opportunities fall outside of traditional employment.

    If an ultimate aim is to empower students with the abilities to hit the ground running when they leave education, what hope really do they have if the tools used to make this so are blunt.

    There is a view that 50% of the jobs of the future do not yet exist, but if the view is to continually believe that manufacturing (one example) is a key stone to future possibilities then we are doomed.

    If the phrase ‘every child matters’ really mattered, then why is it that there are so many children in education that lack the basics?

  21. oldandrew on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 5:35 pm

    22. “However, within state schools how can this be really achieved in the main if teaching processes fall foul of chalk and talk teaching styles”

    What?

  22. Louis Coiffait on Sat, 23rd Jan 2010 1:36 am

    23. Nothing in Gove’s response clarified what the core values, the grand strategy, of Conservative education policy will be. I’m still waiting for a compelling narrative.

    As for the traditional vs non-traditional subjects, methods and systems debate – I just don’t believe that the full range of young people will be engaged fully by narrower, more rigid options. If we’re to make education relevant and useful to the professional and personal lives of future adults, it has to become more inter-disciplinary/cross-subject, more practical and more bloody attractive to learners at all stages and from all backgrounds!

  23. oldandrew on Sat, 23rd Jan 2010 5:23 am

    24. “I just don’t believe that the full range of young people will be engaged fully by narrower, more rigid options.”

    Views of what “engages” can be as narrow and rigid as views of what is actually worth knowing. Dumbing down is usually justified by talk of “engagement”.

    “If we’re to make education relevant and useful to the professional and personal lives of future adults, it has to become more inter-disciplinary/cross-subject, more practical and more bloody attractive to learners at all stages and from all backgrounds!”

    That’s the direction the curriculum has been moving in for about 100 years.

    At what point is this usefulness going to emerge?

  24. Ajax Harington on Wed, 26th May 2010 4:16 pm

    25. Gove should read more Jonathan Swift…
    http://tinyurl.com/34k4cr2

  25. Liam Collins on Sat, 17th Jul 2010 8:30 pm

    26. There is more to education that a pathway to Universities. Enabling all students to be able to achieve, rather fail dogmatic curriculum will enable young people to make progression to the next stage of their lives. A traditional O’level maths course is of no use to anyone not wishing to pursue careers that need it. Currently, the GCSE Science courses fail half the population, but put those students into a BTEC and your are damned for failing those students if they wish to pursue a career in the sciences.

    Through choice allow students to pick subjects that they want to choose. Have breadth and depth to the KS4 curriculum. Allow the academic rigour for students that wish to go onto the traditional universities, but also allow the rest of the rest of the students to succeed at school.

    We need to get away from the comparing apples with bananas, that is the current trend when it comes to the outcome for students. From my point of view the most important thing is to allow students to succeed, no matter what their aspirations are.

  26. Gove’s education speech to Conservative conference « LGiU – the local democracy blog on Tue, 5th Oct 2010 3:02 pm

    27. [...] allow some of the most progressive of the progressive education camp, such as Montessori and the RSA, to establish a far bigger presence in the state system. In this situation, rhetoric’s probably [...]

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