The role of schools in lifelong learning
Keywords Education, Learning, Career development
If we want schools to play a fundamental role in helping to create and sustain a system of lifelong learning that works for everyone, we have to be prepared to contemplate and invent radically different institutional forms. This was the view of Tom Bentley, director of Demos, at a seminar on the role of schools in lifelong learning. The event was organized by the Goodison group,which is recommending priorities to the Government on lifelong learning. Bentley argued that "there has to be recognition that if we are to make the role of schools even more ambitious – which we should – the core structure of schooling has to be changed because we are reaching the limit of what that core institutional infrastructure can do. Many other sectors of society are in the process of being radically restructured but the basic institutional form of the school, of the college and even of many universities has hardly changed." He suggested that there are two tests that should be applied to the education system for the younger generation. The first is how far young people are able to apply what they learn in school to contexts beyond the bounds of that formal experience. The second is how well equipped they are to continue learning and solving problems throughout their adult lives.
Bentley also speculated on the roles required. "If the relationship between formal education and the wider community is so important, we need to be developing appropriate professional roles. The goal should be that within ten years every school should have at least two full-time school-community brokers. Teaching should be essentially a part-time profession. If we want to put schools, teachers and learning at the heart of a knowledge society, we have to stop worrying about how to inject the right professional knowledge into the teaching profession in order to keep up with the demands we place on them. We need to reconceptualize their role as that of knowledge creators."
Seminar participants agreed that schools should be a learning resource for the community and that the learning within schools should be influenced intimately by the community. This would directly affect access to the school. The implications of greater access over each day, throughout the year, of a new pattern of terms within the year, are considerable and potentially positive not only for schools but also for teachers. The view was expressed that, because of the things that we currently measure, there is an in-built tendency to exaggerate failure, and failure breeds a sense of exclusion. What we measure we value and, by extension, what we do not measure, we do not value. Yet the messages are unhelpful because the skills of employability are not among those that we measure. We need to take hold of the opportunities offered in Curriculum 2000 to develop key skills – citizenship, personal target setting and taking personal responsibility for learning. It was also claimed that very few school-based qualifications qualify anybody for anything beyond the capacity to go beyond the next stage. We need qualifications to indicate the level of employability reached by young people. We need to be able to create a situation where youngsters can try things at which they can fail without condemnation. The narrowness of targets militates against this and militates against the crucial development of creativity. Young people always put qualifications at the top of their list. Employers put things like enthusiasm, initiative, honesty,commitment, positive attitude and adaptability. These, it was suggested, are the areas we are in danger of excluding if we continue to isolate our schools and measure them too narrowly.
The Goodison group seeks views and comments. Please write, fax or e-mail:Brain Stevens, at Feds, 147 High Street, Godalming GU7 1AF. Fax: +44 1483 427266; E-mail: feds@feds.co.uk
