Many of us hoped that when Tony Blair stood as Prime Minister and left the Commons in 2007, we would be free of his bad takes and he would enjoy a quiet retirement away from public life. Alas, that was not to be. In his latest emergence from the woodwork, the former Prime Minister has waged war on standardised testing in an attempt to cling on to relevancy in a world trying to leave New Labour behind.
The proposals from the Tony Blair Institute, a globalist think tank chaired by Blair since its founding in 2016, has suggested a serious of recklessly radical reforms to education inspectorate Ofsted, including the outright scrapping of GCSEs and A-Levels in favour of “continuous assessment”.
In an article for the Telegraph yesterday, Tony Blair claims this approach would encourage development of critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaborative problem solving, skills which I remember learning during life skills lessons when I was at school and taking exams. It is also worth noting that he cites research from the controversial World Economic Forum, an unelected group of technocrats criticised for attempting to influence political affairs and belief in the need for a “Great Reset”.
It is no coincidence that Mr Blair chose this time to suggest these changes, at a time of great discontent with exam results caused by a global crisis affecting school attendance and learning. Many are, understandably, looking for ways to safeguard students from such shocks in the future. After all, one should never let a good crisis go to waste.
The irony comes, though, as the last few years have acted as a case study on what happens when standardised tests are disrupted and so called “continuous assessment” is relied upon. When many of my peers finished their A-Levels a year ago, much of their grade was made up of assessments taken during the year by the schools themselves and not the independent boards that provide a more objective decision. While this was the only real option available at the time, it did prove that the approach is not a reliable one and leads to a lot of upset for students.
The TBI goes on to suggest that Ofsted ought to stop focusing on the curriculum and instead needs to become a “critical friend”. This somewhat baffling suggestion fails to recognise the job of the inspectorate, to grade education institutes and give parents an informed choice of schools, not to make decisions on how schools should be run.
Additionally, Ofsted inspections already look at the school environment, teaching styles and discipline as well as curriculum performance and grade accordingly. The fact that has been overlooked by Blair and his team shows just how out of touch they are with our education system and the needs of parents and students.
The final and most ridiculous suggestion of the lot is that students be mandated to take English and Maths up until they are 18, taking us back to a more Baccalaureate-esque system that already proved itself to be ineffective. Alan Smithers of Buckingham University said in the Daily Mail :
“We used to have a baccalaureate-style school certificate and this went awry because there were people who were very good in some bits [but] couldn’t pass the others.”
Such an approach also prevents students from being able to focus on and study the subjects they enjoy and excel at and instead forces them to take subjects they have no passion for. A-Levels are extremely demanding and there is a reason most students only take three at a time. To pile extra pressure onto those young people does nothing but worsen the mental health impacts of many and can jeopardise their performance in the subjects they need for their entry to university or a career.
There are of course issues with our current system of grading. As a school governor myself I can attest to that. However, we should not throw the baby out with the bath water and potentially increase the burden on young people and harm their prospects for the future. All changes must be made after careful consideration and need to consider the impacts on students, teachers, and parents alike.
Overall, the former Prime Minister, who many consider to have left in disgrace after the controversy over the Iraq war, has overplayed his hand. A plethora of experts from every corner of the education sector have come out to highlight the out of touch and reckless nature of these ideas. With this much resistance, it is safe to say that we will not be seeing changes like these any time soon, but we must be careful that this remains the case or fear our education system crumbling before our very eyes.
