Fair is foul and foul is fair in the world of the teachers¿ unions¿ three witches

By Kathy Gyngell for The Daily Mail

Published: 20:29 GMT, 24 June 2012 | Updated: 17:51 GMT, 25 June 2012

The three witches of the teachers unions - Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT; Dr. Mary Bousted, leader of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers – are on the war path for Michael Gove.  

His crime is ‘breath taking arrogance”.  He dared to say what most educated people have known for a long time, which is that that GCSE’s are a waste of time and should be scrapped. What’s more he dared to announce the return of tougher ‘O’ levels without consulting this unsavory trio or their unions first.  

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. It is Ms Keates’s arrogance and sheer stupidity that is ‘breath taking’.

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The fault lies not with the unions, the teachers or the formulaic and moduled exams, but with Michael Gove

How else could she say that, ‘there is NO evidence that the current system is broken, that examinations are getting easier or that our qualifications are trailing behind the best in the world’?

What world does she reside in?

It is not just that academies have shifted pupils to easy GCSEs to inflate the number of A – C results. Below that doesn’t count – so much for us not having a negative two tier system already.  

It is not just that science GCSE has been dumbed down to a rudimentary ‘citizen’ science. It is not just that after a decade of denial, even the Chief Executive of Ofqual has admitted that GCSE’s have suffered persistent grade inflation – which in everyday language that means they have got easier.  

Nor is it just that A grade GCSE’s in the UK are only worth a C in Hong Kong. It is all this and more. 

For British pupils have more tumbled headlong than slipped down international league tables over the past decade. According to the most authoritative OECD comparison the UK has dropped from fourth to 16th in science, from seventh to 25th in literacy and from eighth to 28th in maths.

It is hard to know how these facts have escaped our teachers’ union luminary.

However, she seems unconcerned that after billions thrown at our education system over the last three decades since GCSE’s were introduced, half of adults in Britain only have maths skills of a primary school pupil. There is no suggestion she is at all excised by the fact that only 15 per cent of pupils continue maths after GCSE though in most other developed countries half the students take maths to eighteen. 

No, she seems to be defiantly impervious to the truth - that the current education system is failing on two counts – domestically and internationally. At home, education the once engine of social mobility, stuck in the mud ever since the obsession with equalizing not educating took over has made society more not less divided. Internationally it has produced a poorly or under skilled population in face of international economic competition

But for the furies of the teachers’ unions ‘fair is foul and foul is fair,’  and the fault lies not with them, the teachers or the formulaic and moduled  exams, but with Michael Gove. 

One of the three witches: Chris Keates, Acting General Secretary of the NASUWT, claims there is 'NO evidence that the current system is broken, that examinations are getting easier or that our qualifications are trailing behind the best in the world'

If it didn’t make you laugh you would cry.

Certainly the second of three furies, Christine Blower, seems to think this: ‘Michael Gove’s continual criticism of GCSEs as a “dumbed down” examination,” she said, “is not only incorrect but also very offensive to those pupils and teachers who achieve great results every year”.

And who are they I wonder?

It can only be those pupils with the inflated A to C grade passes; or has she forgotten the other poor pupils to whom this pretence cannot be stretched, pupils who did not even manage a C grade, the pupils whom the current system fails altogether  66 per cent of whom come from disadvantaged homes?

How more two tier can you get than that?

Yet Ms. Blower believes that: ‘Getting rid of GCSEs and replacing them with the old O-level and CSE qualifications could easily lower aspirations and exacerbate inequalities in society.’

It might, on the other hand, open up these kids to a proper vocational training that might give them something to live for.

This does not seem to be a consideration to have crossed Dr Mary Bousted’s mind; her knee jerk reaction is that Mr. Gove’s plans are ‘ludicrous’. 

Not so.

As Melanie Philips points out in these columns his plans in fact represent, “the first major attempt to get to grips with the fundamental driver of educational collapse”. This is what terrifies them. The simple fact is that his reforms will leave teachers nowhere to hide. ‘O’ levels will expose the teachers who have no knowledge to transmit.

In his Sunday Times column last week Rod Liddle wondered how many could recite a decent poem off by heart. Not many I venture,  not since the content got stripped out of education and its currency debased.

But bringing back ‘O’ levels is the way to return to the education gold standard. No wonder the teachers union furies are so determined to protect and defend the old currency. No wonder they have taken to their broomsticks to bring down the Conservative’s would be Harry Potter of Education.

For let’s face it, Michael Gove is going to need every bit of Harry Potter’s magic to keep that elusive ‘O’ level quidditch in his grasp during the consultation process he has so foolishly promised.
 

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