Review the National Curriculum, but also young people and work.

Despite its limited terms of reference, the National Curriculum Review should get rid of the worst aspects of Michael Gove’s 2010 ‘reforms’ – making the curriculum broader, less Eurocentric and more inclusive. At least an element of Creative Arts is likely to be restored, along with greater access to sport and vocational subjects.  Given the increasing universality of progressing to post-16 education the reviewers might also recommend abolishing the increasingly unnecessary GCSE and include a review of the current Key Stage 5 disaster, where the proposals of the previous government to defund BTEC courses to make way for new T-levels have already been put on hold, allowing post-16 providers to plan ahead beyond the next few months.

But in other respects, despite wanting to reach out to and seek ‘evidence’ from practitioners the review hasn’t attracted any real excitement or real interest. Unlike in previous times, wider debate and discussion about pedagogy and the curriculum has long since lost momentum. The post-war teacher force, many of whom remained committed to the radical reform of the curriculum and in particularly in the ‘vanguard’ areas of English and the humanities has been replaced by a new kind of labour, shackled by targets, performance indicators and the dreaded Ofsted. 

Rather than being experimental and creative and often including enthusiastic membership of subject associations, it largely does what it’s told if only out of fear.   In addition, many teachers now well in to ‘mid-term’ of their careers, know that further promotion prospects will depend on a CV reflecting high levels of conformity.

The imposition of the original National Curriculum by Kenneth Baker (then an ardent Thatcherite) at the start of the 1990s, was met with fierce opposition from, but also ignited fierce debate within the National Union of Teachers about what the curriculum should be about and in who’s interests. Issues of class, race and gender continued to remain integral to union responses, with local activists leading mass campaigns against the new SATs tests.

By way of contrast, the majority of the current leadership the National Education Union, quite understandably, preoccupied with pay and workload and certainly not any less militant than their NUT predecessors, is the product of Tory and New Labour schooling itself. Sitting the  SATs and having no experience or real knowledge of anything else but a curriculum imposed by central government.

The reviewers have been charged with ensuring that young people ‘leave compulsory education ready for life and ready for work’, but can  curriculum changes – likely to be introduced sometime in 2026 really make that much difference to their lives?  The current cohort of young people is the most educated (or rather the most ‘qualified’) generation ever. A-levels, designed as a qualification for the few are now taken by more than half of 18-year-olds.

Likewise, progression to higher education (going to ‘uni ’as it is now routinely referred to by thousands of school and college students) has in most cases become something considered necessary if you are to stand any chance making a secure transition into the labour market – even if, as many graduates will tell you, this is now not enough on its own!  While raising the status of and increasing opportunities within vocational education – something which the reviewers will no doubt want to do, cannot be considered a serious strategy, if there is no proper employment progression afterwards.

In otherwords, the issues facing young people, are very different to what the campaigners for comprehensive education once considered them to be.  While a lack of educational opportunity for working class students is still apparent, it has been subsumed by a more general situation where young people – apart from a small minority, are likely to be increasing ‘overqualified and underemployed’. This can only be made worse if, as is argued, the increased adoption of AI technology destroys what are generally referred to as ‘middle-jobs’, (or ‘education jobs’ – where you needed more than just basic qualifications to get them), ushering a two-tier labour market.

This is the exact opposite to that promised by the turn of the century Blairites who lectured young people about how the new global economy would provide substantial rewards for those who continued onto post-school education, compared to those who did not. This is not to say that campaigns for an alternative curriculum shouldn’t be re-established, they most certainly should; but that if they are to have real legitimacy, they must be part of a more general strategy for improving the economic situation of young people.