How education – and fun – can continue throughout the summer (The Times)

When the school bell rings on the final day of the academic year, you can almost taste the anticipation; six odd weeks of freedom, of mornings in bed, afternoons spent in the delirium of having nothing pressing to get on with and evenings without the burden of homework.

But as has been a subject of debate on the pages of The Times and elsewhere, not everyone benefits from the break. Too many pupils slip in the absence of a structured timetable and a teacher to guide them.

Short of cutting the summer holiday – already among the shortest in Europe – as Janice Turner suggested, the summer slide is inevitable. Or is it?
Education doesn’t have to be in the classroom. It doesn’t have to involve a whiteboard, or “Miss” at the front of the room explaining a topic and handing out worksheets. Education doesn’t have to be formal.

This post first appeared on The Times School Gate blog. Read the rest here.

Cooking Up A New Curriculum (Huff Post UK)

How do you boil an egg?

It’s not a ridiculous question. In fact, it’s one some of the most well-educated and intellectual people out there would struggle with.

They might be clued up on Chaucer and know Tolstoy to a T, but ask them about baking, boiling or frying and, quite often, they will be stumped for an answer.

I’m generalising of course. It’s not just the straight-A students who lack life skills, it’s everyone.

By the time the national curriculum was introduced in 1988, home economics was “food technology” and regarded as akin to design and technology. Politicians have occasionally brought up a return to practical cooking in schools – Ed Balls prompted much debate with such a pledge in 2008 – but the reality is, too many school-leavers have never been near a saucepan or an oven glove.

It’s not just cooking. It’s everything from changing a light-bulb to cleaning a loo.

As a rent-paying adult in a full-time job, I’ll freely admit that I’m still blurry on the nuances of mortgages, tax bands and interest rates. I’ve spent more hours than Jimmy Wales intended on Wikipedia, familiarising myself with everyday concepts like ISAs or credit ratings. Better that than to admit I’m clueless.

It’s time to address just how clueless we are.

We’re taught “No to drink and drugs” or “Don’t have unprotected sex”, but less time is dedicated to life skills like basic finances, reading the electricity meter or following the instruction manual for IKEA flat pack furniture.

This post first appeared on Huffington Post UK. Read the rest here.

New College: a degree from A Good University

Depending on who you talk to, the planned New College of the Humanities is the saviour of British education or its death knell.

To some, setting up a private college is a long-overdue move to put Britain back into competition with the diverse (and pricey) halls of academia across the Atlantic.

To others, it’s a step backwards, a return to a time when higher education was limited to the sons (not daughters) of the wealthy and entitled.

As a graduate, I, like most of the most disgruntled commentators on the subject, won’t be able to study at New College. Though my graduate status isn’t the biggest obstacle; I’m not sure where in my pockets I’d find the £18,000 fees.

But while I can understand the rage about the price, I can’t get too excited about the “controversial” news that the College will teach “exactly the same syllabuses as the University of London” at double the price. Because it’s only the tip of a much bigger iceberg.

If I were a student at the University of London, I’d consider myself unbelievably lucky to be able to study on a course deemed exemplary by a bunch of Britain’s brightest intellectuals – but not pay what they considered it to be worth.

Students are chuffed when a bottle of wine is on BOGOF at the supermarket. I’d say a half-price degree would merit at least a cheer.

But more importantly, I think the critics have resoundingly missed the point. It doesn’t really matter what the New Collge students learn. They could spend their days finger-painting and meditating, safe in the knowledge that the hefty fee thair devoted parents forked out for will net them A Degree From A Good University.

A university degree is – and has been for a long time – about the piece of paper at the end and also what logo is on that piece of paper.

Whatever the content of the course at Cambridge was, compared with the content of the course at the University of Nowheresville – even if the content was exactly the same – Cambridge is always going to look more impressive than Nowheresville on a CV.

Students, the savvy ones anyway, choose their universities based on prestige.

I’m sure there were plenty of universities around Britain with politics courses tailored to what I wanted to study, but one of my key considerations was how well my choice of campus would be regarded.

Place trumped course, because I knew few employees would be interested in the specifics of what I studied. I knew they’d care far more whether it was a Red Brick or a former poly.

New College could end up with a terrible reputation. If it does, the critics can pat themselves on the back and go away smug in the knowledge that education is not for sale even though a few fools spent a lot of money trying to buy it.

But if it does grow to rival Oxbridge or the Ivy League, applicants will want to go there because of that, not because of what they could learn when they get there. How many Oxbridge applicants study the module guides (except as interview fodder)? Most of them see Oxbridge, not any particular course, as the holy grail.

To answer Shakespeare, when it comes to higher education, there’s an awful lot in a name.

Education should be the point of university, but it’s never going to be, so long as league tables are published and universities focus on publicity and self-promotion at the expense of teaching.

Attacking New College for playing the system at its own game is not going to change that.

What LBJ could tell the Lib Dems about tuition fees

I interviewed a teenage Liberal Democrat activist in February, for a piece on youth apathy.

He told me that when out canvassing, the party’s stance on university fees was a real vote winner. It set them apart; it suggested they were fighting the students’ corner.

Now let’s recall what was said by Nick Clegg before the election:

“The Liberal Democrats are different. Not only will we oppose any raising of the cap, we will scrap tuition fees for good, including for part-time students.

“Students can make the difference in countless seats in this election. Use your vote to block those unfair tuition fees and get them scrapped once and for all.”

“Only the Liberal Democrats are committed to scrapping tuitions fees altogether and oppose any attempt to raise them.”

“Despite the huge financial strain fees already place on Britain’s young people, it is clear both Labour and the Conservatives want to lift the cap on fees. If fees rise to £7,000 a year, as many rumours suggest they would, within five years some students will be leaving university up to £44,000 in debt. That would be a disaster.”

Lovely words from the deputy prime minister there. All the lovelier for the news that, as the BBC reports:

“Lord Browne’s review is expected to recommend scrapping the upper limit on tuition fees in England.”

It was always unlikely that the costs of university education would survive unchanged as the Government seeks to cut costs. Before the election, it became increasingly clear that this was a possibility under whoever got in – Labour or the Conservatives.

But it was a major plank of Lib Dem policy agenda before the election. They campaigned on it, they threw mud at their opponents on it.

Sure, they don’t seem too happy about going back on their promise. Plenty have promised to rebel, and it’s likely any rise will happen without a fight from the party faithful.

But it will probably be a fight for nothing. Clegg is in the coalition, and however bitter this defeat is it’s unlikely he’ll be willing to sacrifice his position to prevent it.

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the Democrat president is said to have sighed:

“There goes the South for a generation.”

With this reversal (for it can only be called that), how many generations of the “yoof vote” will the Lib Dems be kissing goodbye to?