“We are in a dangerous time as an education sector, and those around us are sleeping”

A school principal from Northern Ireland writes about their fears for its education reform programme.

 

Education Uncovered has published an investigation into complex and rapidly-formulated education reform plans in Northern Ireland. Here, the principal of a school raises concerns. (This piece needs to be read after the main article).

 

As the principal of a school I love the concept of education reform. I love the opportunity to dream up new ways and new methods of engaging with our pupils to help them learn from the baseline they are at. The current Northern Ireland curriculum, although flawed, has allowed us to have a level of autonomy whereby we can go some way to do just that.

But as a personal high achiever I was very (naively) excited by the new TransformEd review. The promise of TransformEd encouraged us to see subjects as connected constellations of concepts, where, as we work together in a collegiate manner, it would allow us to have greater clarity, depth and understanding. We would be successful in creating a curriculum that is rich in knowledge where units of work can build upon one another and prerequisite learning and awareness can flow easily.

The abundance of English and other international “experts” being paid a king’s ransom to attend conference and briefings elicit hope and trust by using phrases like structure, clarity and specificity. In reality this has seduced the educational landscape in Northern Ireland. Despite curricular teams being created to chart this brave new world, there is a clear shift in the method of delivery in classrooms that is anathema to the creativity, collaboration and criticality that has grown naturally in the past 17 years.

Pupils in Northern Ireland have a greater degree of oral presentational skills compared to their GB counterparts, something they are at risk of losing if TransformEd succeeds in being fully implemented. There is a high chance that the future of education will look like something Dickensian where we teach our children in huddles, hearing lectures on subjects that have no local context while engaging with preconceived curricula purchased en masse by the department from third party providers. This fills me with utter dread.

I also feel that the level of analysis and granular inspection that has taken place in England and the rest of the UK is on its way to Northern Ireland. The six key data points of educational assessment will be retrieved and the context of a locality will not be taken into consideration as it has been currently.

Northern Ireland is an untapped vein in the coal face of education ready to be exploited at the hands of our countrymen who seek to do us the most harm in the name of progress. This will create a culture where educationalists lose voice, agency and input in designing their own lessons that are bespoke to the children they have in front of them.

Educationalists will be provided with scripted literacy lessons like those from Read Write Inc. where teachers will read from a prepared text and have a greater reliance on assistants and non-teaching staff to meet the gruelling demands of purchased programmes, again underlining the fact that children will not have the ability to learn in a way that suits them.

We will be deprived not only of our liberty but of the excellent results that we have had over the past decades in comparison to our counterparts in England and the rest of GB. We are in a dangerous time as an education sector and those around us are sleeping. They can’t see that what is coming down the track will irrevocably change their place within a career pathway that could have benefited communities and Northern Ireland for many decades to come. I fear we will see mass resignations, and a huge retention crisis as a one size fits all approach is forced on our communities for the sake of change.