Values and purpose of education and skills

One of the points I have noted from reading about educational theory, is that any model or ideology which is Instrumentalist or even Classical Humanist, which views education as a process for creating a workforce or suggests that knowledge is absolute and has a validity independent of moral or ethical considerations, is inherently undemocratic (e.g. The National Curriculum).

Looking at the current education system, especially in FE, what I seem to see is the outcome of a shift by New Labour from regarding individuals as subjects of the state to regarding them as subjects of the economy. At no point, however, does New Labour allow this fundamental tenet of its education policy to be questioned, and this concerns me.

In my view the only purpose of the state is to assist, and protect the rights of, the individual. What the state, or the economy, gets in return is essentially irrelevant when you take this viewpoint, unless this in some way directly impinges upon individuals within the society in question.

The improvement of the individual is what matters. What they choose to do with those improvements is for them to decide, as long as they do not choose to harm others.

I would argue, however, that applying this theoretical standpoint to practice is essentially the role of schools in the first instance, and that doing so would act as the foundation for far more Instrumentalist teaching in FE, in particular. I say this on the basis that learners will choose to positively contribute to a society that they value and that vocational training will act as a vehicle for them to do so, thus overcoming the qualms that I might have had about the democratic credentials of Instrumentalism.

Having worked in FE as learning support for nearly seven years, and having started paid teaching in September, I have seen only a fraction of the education system as it exists today. What I have learned, though, is that somewhere policy is failing, and that educators are being torn between two competing, and incompatible, ideologies.

OFSTED seems almost obsessed with Liberal Humanism, which is not what I was advocating above, and the Government has Instrumentalism firmly in mind. The two together cannot and will not work. As long as we fail to realise this, it is the learners who suffer, and that cannot be allowed to continue. Individuals do not exist to service the economy and they do not learn through chance alone.

I would advocate an education system which sees human development as its core purpose, with the caveat that the teacher, as the autonomous and professional educator, should never fail to question their own motives and biases when presenting a developmental experience to the learner. Only through application of education as development can we truly achieve the democratic ideal for which I hope we all strive. I would suggest that this vehicle is also the only way to ensure the very competitiveness which is at the core of current education policy, as only those learners who value a goal will truly strive to achieve it and Instrumentalism is too focused upon the pragmatic outcome to instill any belief in the value of the goal.

It is my sincerest hope that this viewpoint will be reflected in future educational policy.