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WHAT makes an outstanding school system? This is a question that very few governments around the world spend quality time investigating and, considering the vital importance to a country’s economy now and into the future, I remain confused by the lack of drive in this regard.
My ingredients listed below give a broad view on what I feel are the fundamental aspects of an outstanding state school system.
Inclusivity
Every country in the world has an absolute moral imperative to educate every child, to ensure they flourish. Every child. Not just the ones whose parents have money to buy books. Not just those with a particular hue of skin.
Not just those who speak a particular language or dialect. Not just those of a particular religious affiliation. Not those of a particular academic or physical ability. And not just those who conform to stereotypical gender biases. Giving everyone access to quality education has to be a fundamental principle for every moral government.
Apolitical
Evidently, Winston Churchill said back in 1947 that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time… ”.
And yet, democracy is all we really have, so to leave national educational policy decisions to those who have to pander to the whims of the voting population is fraught with difficulty.
People who vote will often decide that they will vote for representatives who… represent their own opinions. This sounds fine until you realise that the voting population’s personal experience of education is often 20 or more years out of date.
If the voting population chooses their government representatives based on out-of-date educational principles and practices, then education takes a step (or possibly three) back. Politics needs to be left out of education, and policy must be driven by academics and educators who research, know, and genuinely understand what works for young people.
Investment
Investment in research and development is one of the hallmarks of outstanding companies. What works? What doesn’t? Why? How can we make the best of a challenging situation?
There is, of course, a financial cost to investment, and also a human cost. But really, why on earth would anyone scrimp and save on investment in education? We are building the workforce of the future and if we do not teach them the skills, aptitudes and resilience that they need to be successful, then that has to be considered a calamitous failure.
The short-term costs will be vastly outweighed by increased productivity, reduced healthcare costs, improved well-being and wide-ranging skillset offered by those who are really able to flourish. And with that flourishing workforce comes a flourishing country. Everyone wins!
Investment in facilities and resources needs to happen, too. Which 12-year-old wants to attend a school where the toilets don’t work, where the fire escapes are broken, where they don’t have access to healthy meals, and where they don’t have the right equipment to hand. What does it tell the child of how much we value education if we don’t invest in basic human necessities?
Training
Part of investment comes in training your staff. Teachers make up one of the single biggest degree-educated workforces in a country so, maintaining best practice, allowing teachers to learn from each other and establishing a culture of trust (rather than judgment) means that the ability to try out different pedagogies and really refine what works for the group of students in front of you at any particular time on any particular day so that they succeed, has to be fundamental.
Who delivers the training? Teachers. Their role is to teach. They are the experts (they really are… my current colleagues, some of whom have far less total experience than me, have taught me how to use technology in intriguing and impactful ways to ensure students are surge forward in their learning). Using teachers’ skills to teach colleagues is the best way to share outstanding practice.
Valuing educators
Getting the right people into teaching should go without saying, but in how many countries around the world, can one say that teaching is genuinely aspirational. Astronaut? Doctor? Engineer? Investment banker? Lawyer?
All highly regarded and thus highly aspirational. But teaching? A cultural shift where political, industrial and social leaders publicly acknowledge and respect the teaching profession will encourage more people to enter the teaching vocation.
Educator values
So, how do we know that someone would make a good teacher? Teachers are, depending on the time of day, an educator, counsellor, nurse, coach, advocate, carer, chef, buddy, problem-solver, assessor, confidence-builder, relationship-maker… the list goes on. It’s not just about telling someone what covalent bonding is all about, or when to use adverbs, or how to solve a quadratic equation. I’ve listed a few attributes below that I feel are fundamental in any teacher:
Respect involves taking time to listen to students, colleagues and parents, genuinely valuing their feedback, and acting on that feedback with purpose.
An expectation of excellence in all we do helps to ensure that students achieve all of which they are truly capable of.
Adaptability involves understanding context – cultural, academic and social – and ensuring teachers are able to meet the needs of all their students.
Care involves looking after oneself, one’s colleagues and, of course, the students to ensure they feel safe, capable and happy, thereby allowing them to flourish.
Humour has the capacity to help forge successful teams, build a sense of unity and help guide us in times of strife.
A teacher who possesses these values is bound to have a huge impact on the children she or he teaches.
Holistic education
A long while back when I was working in the chemical industry, I worked for someone who was a little older than me. I didn’t quite have my chemistry degree at the time, and he had his doctorate in chemistry. He knew the technical aspects, but he couldn’t get on with the staff in the chemical plant; they either ignored him or found their own solutions to problems.
Eventually, I ended up acting as a go-between, because he didn’t have the range and depth of communication skills, the sensitivity, the empathy, the sense of timing to understand what they needed.
This taught me a valuable lesson: whilst technical skills are important, softer skills such as teamwork, empathy, humour and cultural understanding are vital for individual and company success. Schools have to be deliberate about teaching these skills as part of a holistic education package.
Collaboration with industry and commerce
An interesting question that sometimes gets lost is why we need to educate our young people. Ultimately, we need them to be successful. The word “successful” encompasses a whole gamut of skills and attributes, and in the interests of brevity, this list from Forbes, helps:
Schools need to collaborate with the workplace to give students authentic opportunities to hone these skills in an environment where mistakes are not frowned upon, but instead celebrated. In doing so, we push the boundaries of students and help them to become better individuals as a result.
Cultural diversity
The world has never been a smaller place, and so we find ourselves constantly dealing with people who have different backgrounds, experiences, philosophies and cultures. Truly successful people not only cope with this cultural diversity but expand their own repertoire of skills in the process.
They may know two, three or even more languages. They understand the cultural nuances of someone from Australia, and can adapt how they discuss challenges when instead dealing with someone from East Asia.
Linda Ray highlights a number of these in an excellent short article on examples of cultural differences in business. Students who are successful need first-hand experience of multicultural environments, preferably authentic ones, if they are to be successful in the world of work.
Curriculum
What we teach students should have purpose and relevance and, if at all possible, the content should be authentic. Using one of my examples above, this means not just teaching covalent bonding but showing how covalent bonding has an impact on the property of a material and, thereby, will influence how and where that material can be used.
Or, it could be setting up a business at school and selling flowers for mothers on Mother’s Day. This will involve looking at potential suppliers, understanding logistics, preparing advertising and setting up price points and selling kiosks. It’s all very real-world and allows students to learn through their mistakes and successes.
There is a broad schism in education between what is commonly termed vocational courses (think training to be a mechanic, electrician or hairdresser) and more academic courses (think IGCSEs, A Levels, the IB Diploma). There can sometimes be a particular bias from parents, students and even prospective employers when viewing vocational courses, but the reality is that they meet a very worthwhile need. Traditional courses such as chemistry, maths, English and geography all have a purpose… for some students. For others, maybe far less so.
Assessment
And then, we come to the thorny issue of assessing student attainment. Or do we mean achievement? What’s the difference? Attainment is what the student knows or can do relative to external standards.
For example, can a student solve a quadratic equation? Can she solve a more complex quadratic equation? If the answer is yes, she has attained that skill.
Attainment essentially compares a student with other students using these criteria. Achievement, on the other hand, considers how well a student has done compared with their own prior understanding. Think of it more as how a student has grown over the duration of a module or course.
Either way, what’s important from a workplace perspective? And so, we return to the challenge of content versus skills. For more than 100 years, the UK has focused on clear, examination-assessed knowledge and the workplace has followed that lead.
Employers regularly want students with a first class honours degree, or a 2.1 at a push. But will this student automatically perform better in the workplace compared with someone who maybe got a 2.2 or even a third-class degree?
No. Or yes. The actual answer is, we don’t know, because the class of the degree doesn’t assess the very soft skills that employers constantly tell us they value so much. So, we need a system where those softer skills are more valued and thus more fit for purpose.
Summary
I appreciate that creating a list makes the topic appear to be simple. My intention wasn’t to oversimplify the issue and, of course, I understand the challenges of funding, voters, training, assessment etc.
Fundamental changes to any education system require courage, conviction and clear thinking. The evidence, however, is there for everyone to see – Finland continues to be a top performer in international ratings. Will other countries around the world be brave? Let’s hope so, for our children’s sake. – The Vibes, September 1, 2021
Gavin Lazaro is a vice-principal at an international school in Kuala Lumpur. Born and educated in the UK, he worked in the chemical industry for five years before studying education at the University of Oxford and thereafter entering the education profession. He has been in education for nearly 30 years in the UK, Kuwait, Bangkok and now, KL