We need literate, numerate children even more now
The new tougher GCSE exams, with their correspondingly lower pass marks – designed to save the nation’s blushes – have given us another glimpse of just how low our education standards have fallen in recent decades. Apparently it was possible to get a pass in chemistry answering fewer than 10 per cent of the questions. A report by the University of Sheffield back in 2010 found that 22 per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds were functionally innumerate and 17 per cent were illiterate.
Michael Gove was right to stop the dilution of grades and standards with his new exams, but within that overall objective it is surely a national priority to focus on that bottom 20 per cent, especially with an eye on Brexit and employability. An education system is not just about sifting out the brightest and best and ensuring they are stretched to the maximum; it is also, in the phrase of the American writer Christopher Lasch, about raising “the general competence level of society”.
This will not be achieved by shuffling some children off into easier exams or vocational qualifications at 14. When taught well in ordered classrooms, only a very small percentage of children are not capable of achieving decent results in the academic subjects – English, Maths, some basic science, an overview of their nation’s history, a crack at a foreign language – when they are 16, as some of our best state schools are now showing.
After the age of 16, those without the inclination or ability to move into the A-level stream should have decent vocational options. The new T-level qualification is one attempt to provide this. T-levels will never compete in terms of prestige with A-levels and a university degree, but they should be more than a dumping ground for the non-academic and help to set people up for productive work. Alas, T-levels are in danger of becoming yet another failed vocational experiment.
The full roll-out is not due until 2023, but they are unlikely to attract the children of middle-class or aspirational parents. There is also the problem of premature specialisation. At the tender age of 16, children have to opt for one sector, such as transport or construction or childcare, where they might then be stuck for the rest of their working lives.
Brexit may help to focus the country’s attention on this issue. High-status, high-skill, well-paid jobs fill themselves. The real issue for society is to persuade people to do the lower-status jobs with little inherent job satisfaction, especially when notions like the “dignity of labour” no longer have resonance.
Mass immigration has been part of the answer in recent decades, but if that is going to be a bit harder after Brexit, as it should be, then employers are going to have to make their basic jobs more attractive and better paid, or invest more in labour-saving equipment (which would be good for productivity). In return, it is not unreasonable for employers to expect our schools to produce kids, at all levels, with basic literacy and numeracy.