The Curriculum Review gets a D-
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The report on the review of the curriculum in English schools contains the bold assertion
“In a world of rapid technological, environmental and social change, subject-specific knowledge remains the best investment.” P 10.
This assertion is not supported by employers and by research evidence on adults. All reports from employers’ organisations say how the formal education system, with its emphasis on narrow subject knowledge, does not fit the needs of the world of work for people who are team players, self disciplined, problem solvers and effective self managing learners. The report makes an aside to the impact of AI whilst ignoring the realities of the new AI enabled world on a knowledge-based system.
Our research on what makes adults effective in work, the home and their communities shows that all educational inputs have at best around a 10% contribution to what makes a person a fully-functioning human being. Indeed for many schooling has actually put people off learning – such as many of the NEETs.
The review is, in fact, a real damp squib. It proposes minor changes in the school curriculum that, in themselves, are not bad. Getting rid of the English Baccalaureate, for instance, is undoubtedly at good thing. And encouraging the arts is clearly valuable.
However there is nothing in the document that provides any hope to the million young people classified as NEET. It does nothing to address the scandal of the high levels of illiteracy in this population and the knock-on effect of overflowing prisons where 50% of the occupants are functionally illiterate. And if school had not failed them most would undoubtedly not be there.
There is no acknowledgement that the knowledge-based curriculum is a source of mental illness in many school-aged children. Anxiety-making assessment processes are to be maintained in their proposals.
The document continues the classic rhetoric of maintaining academic standards through a process that does not ensure young people are ready to enter adulthood as fully functioning citizens.