A year has now passed since in April 2014 the Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg – discover his work here… and Peter Mortimer – see a collection of his articles in the The Guardian, UK, ex-Director of the London Institute of Education, met to discuss with a London audience the testing subject of Inequality in English Education.
With an ever increasing press for change in social and economic inequality and the drive for more standardisation and accountability by test, the time is absolutely right, we would argue, to spread the work of the Equality in Education Network that emerged that day in April 2014.
The short film linked below, from the event, shows Pasi Sahlberg delivering a critique of GERM, the Global Education Reform Movement. Although presented with a light touch, the argument bites deep. GERM offers no improvement in educational outputs overall, he argues.
You can see the original talk by Pasi Sahlberg on YouTube here…
‘Competition is seen as the right way, striving for pan-education standardisation and test based accountability is now the norm. Education is seen as an industry, a business opportunity…’ Pasi Sahlberg 2014
Pasi develops his argument by looking at two key themes. Inequality and equity. In the frst case, using Finnish data he argues that the Finnish system of tax distribution and social equality has had a profound performance effect on education in his country. In the affluent West, he argues, those nations that have the highest levels of inequality have the lowest quality educational outcomes.
In the second case, equity, the presenter’s data is used to analyse how international education systems serve all the children of a nation. What is the aggregate benefit to a nation by educational system? Here Pasi illustrates the dramatic journey of Finland again, tracking forty years of improving educational attainment . Often within the context of a turbulent socio-political landscape.
Mr. Sahlberg astonishes his audience by announcing that he has read all five volumes of the most recent PISA Report – find key OECD findings on-line here…, at five hundred pages a volume. He has discovered, despite the policy debate and process changes that recently emerged in the UK, two key PISA recommendations – found in the fourth volume.
- School choice and competition are not related to performance.
- Greater equity and autonomy over curricula and assessment seem to improve performance.
The speaker closes his argument with five key recommendations about the delivery of a nation’s educational infrastructure. Although not revolutionary, they are seemingly perhaps counter intuitive at first, when assessed against current UK policy and practice, we would argue.
- Co-operation is key – collaborative work should be the driving force across teaching, political activity, headships and governance in schooling.
- Place less stress on early learning, and much more focus on play.
- Be less confrontational, the key players in education should always strive for consensus.
- Achieve less accountability, but make, what systems there are, trust based.
- Have less school ‘choice‘ and strive always for a more equitable school system.
This is a telling case for Equality in Education.
Call to Action:
At conversationsEAST we would like to support the work of John Bayley and his colleagues in the nascent, London based, Equality in Education Network.
Is there an opportunity for a network group in the East of England?
Make contact with us through our ‘contact us’ slider above and we’ll let the Eastern Region team, and John, know of your interest. We should have an event in the region to revivify the discourse?
Other items of interest on this topic…
You can see and listen to Peter Mortimer’s talk, at the same event, on Inequality in English Education here. Again, delivered in gentle terms, but with a telling cutting edge about current policy.
See Peter Mortimer speak on Inequality in English Education here…
Finally, if the need to examine global inequality issues has grabbed you, it is well worth revisiting The Spirit Level. You can see Richard Wilkinson speaking at TED below…
