We owe it to our children and the nation’s future to replace the leadership in education
AMONGST the many flaws in the proposed system of assessment by teachers of school pupils for the award of school leaving certificates, two stand out as clearly fatal.
First, there is no possibility that an assessment body consisting of thousands of teachers will produce the objective and consistent judgments that would enable the public, prospective employers and higher education institutions to rely on the results. The former gold standard of assessment would be replaced by a national lottery of multiple, subjective opinions, however honestly and sincerely provided.
In the second place, while schools are publicly graded according to pupil attainment, how can we seriously appoint teachers from these same schools to certify that attainment? That would promote a conflict between professional integrity and management demands that would increase the current rate of already-unacceptable clinical stress in the profession.
These and many other identifiable flaws in the current prospectus for education and assessment tell us that every time the politicians change the rule book, they make matters worse, as confirmed also by successive OECD reports (“Education faces overhaul in wake of ‘damning’ report”, The Herald, June 22).
We can have no confidence in the current educational leadership and we owe it to our children and the nation’s future to replace that leadership and to promote a teaching profession with responsibility for the educational process subject to a
broad legal framework and adequate resources. The need for that replacement appears to have been tacitly acknowledged by the scrapping of the SQA which, however, stops well short of the movement away from the political micromanagement which has brought about the current state of affairs.
Michael Sheridan, Argyll.