A current BPTC student, about to sit his final exams, responds to the recent debate on education and school qualifications. This student currently works for a well-known TV entity, whilst also studying the BPTC Full-Time, and is still hoping to complete his training through pupillage in a good set.
With the resurgence of political interest in education, given the looming advent of exam restructuring, I have been urged to elucidate personal experience of education. The pious proclamations of politicians, irrespective of allegiance or alignment, are superfluous to the fundamental issue of education. Like moths to a flame politicians on each side are weighing in to make their mark. Earn cheap points. We should, as a duty, mistrust them and their motives. The real question is ‘how do we effectively impart knowledge to our citizens?’ An unusual term you may think, but, we do not stop learning. Indeed, all of my highest educational achievements have been earned as a mature student accessing higher education.
My years in the compulsory sector were singularly unimpressive. The sum total of my time in primary, middle and then high school (for that is how we did it in those hallowed days), was a grade ‘C’ CSE, equivalent to an O level, and other assorted, less illustrious grades of CSE. I was, at the time, insouciant, for I was destined for matters military. My goal, for as long as I am able to remember, was to be a soldier.
Prior to enlisting I engaged with the Youth Training Scheme or YTS. I adhered to it for 2 years. I chose the YTS because it was something other than school; that great sausage machine. My 18th birthday came and went. I joined up, as an ‘other rank’, reporting to Catterick on a snowy Cambrai Day, November 1989. Over 13 years I experienced the First Gulf War, several tours of Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia not to mention other assorted and classified postings. After, I found myself in Civvy Street: disillusioned, dysfunctional and still, looking at my qualifications, uneducated. Personally, I was now equipped with a modicum of confidence, the ability to operate complex weapon systems, manage personnel, logistics and was in receipt of a war disablement pension. Conversely, this was offset with an institutionalised mind-set, mental health issues resulting from harrowing tours of duty, several disabilities from a body shot through and a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude from the Army. There were no world-renowned charities or wrist bands when I left.
My options as I saw them were to educate one’s self or sit forever in a security job of dubious repute. So, I applied for university. In so doing I lost my disability living allowance and incapacity benefit. I did have another choice: sit as a cripple unable to apply the physical skills I had spent the last 13 years acquiring. If I chose to educate myself the government would take away all my financial support. The message was clear in 2004: stay where you are, do not retrain and become a productive member of society again and we will pay everything for you. So, in characteristic fashion, 10 days after accessing my local Connexions I was sat in my first English Literature lecture at University. My Contemporary History lectures followed soon after. I was overwhelmed initially, financially, emotionally and intellectually. The course was arduous and engaging. My tutors were, for the most part, ever helpful and 3 years later I held a joint honours First Class degree. Unfortunately, after this, the sausage machine caught me up again. My subsequent Graduate Diploma in Law was a challenge because I did not receive anything like the support or understanding I had at university (such is the way of private training providers). Now, further down the line, and I have one final exam to pass before I am a qualified barrister.
Throughout all of this I have despaired, railed at automated authority and an education system that is not set up for education. It is set up to allow people to pass exams. That is not the same as educating people. My late friend once commented that comprehensive education was not introduced with the idea of improving educational standards. It was to remove class distinction. Further, governments have been pressured to improve the exam performance of students and that is exactly what they have done. In some schools to achieve an A* at A level you need just 58%. Yes, just over half your answers correct in order to achieve a simulacrum of great result.
Teachers teach according to a national curriculum: a political gimmick where ministers substitute productivity with activity. There has been so much adjustment in schools and yet, nothing has changed. Why do we place people in charge of a nation’s education with little or no experience of how to achieve it? In business the RBS boss turned the company round in a few short years. In doing so he earned a nation’s ire from doing his job, and doing it well. An ire cultivated vicariously by politicians through the media. Yet we seem content to sit back and watch ministers and governments bicker across a room or on our screens like indolent, irascible school children – the very same whose education they are arguing about; irony or destiny for some perhaps?
My political leaning? Richard Pryor, for he stood for ‘none of the above’. The system is broken and we are beset with moans of ‘well, it is what we have’. Think on it. The people who operate within it are continuously demonstrated as corrupt or incompetent, or both. Party lines do not differentiate there. In what world can we ever expect anything to improve when we perpetuate such a system of stupendous folly? It is way past time to stop squabbling over red or blue policies. The only policy that matters is one that improves education. A simplistic argument? Yes. Are they not the most beautiful and compelling?
