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A Critical Look at a National Curriculum and Testing in Britain
| Article
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18840 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
4,693 Words |
| Author
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Dennis J. O'Keeffe
Dennis J. O'Keeffe is director of the Truancy Research Project
at the Polytechnic of North London, and serves on many
academic and political committees. His latest book is Wayward
Elite: A Critique of British Teacher Education (London: The
Adam Smith Institute, 1990). |
At present the British economy is in a depression. It is not certain whether the extensive economic transformation that occurred in the first seven years of Margaret Thatcher's premiership will eventually be resumed. One presumes so. What is apparent, however, is that the profound changes in the organization of education that began in the Thatcher era are continuing. At the same time there are doubts as to how useful and worthwhile these educational changes are. The essence of Thatcher's general success lay in given power to the right people, enfranchising the citizen-consumer and the citizen-taxpayer, and reining back previously uncontrollable interest-groups, such as the trade unions.
The present educational reforms bear only some of the hallmarks of previously successful economic changes. There are some concessions to consumers of education and taxpayers; but there is insufficient challenge to the interests of producers. It may well be that the opportunity to improve British educational arrangements has already been missed. If this is so, then education will not make the contribution to future economic development that it might have. Nor will it help tackle the profound social malaise in Britain that Thatcherism, even in its successful years, did not much touch.
It is apparent, even allowing for the present severe recession, that Thatcher has wrought a remarkable economic and political transformation. This is witnessed in the profoundly unsocialist character of the present challenge by the Labor Party. If they win the election next year, this will be a result of discontent with high rates of unemployment and expensive mortgages. There is no enthusiasm for socialism as much among the electorate. And Margaret Thatcher did a great deal to effect this mood. Even in the current adversity, Britain has broken with her fairly recent economic past. The society that bumped along at the bottom of the rich world's performance league in the 1960s and 1970s increased her wealth in the 1980s faster than any of her European rivals. It was madness of Thatcher and her chancellor, Nigel Lawson, to relax the Friedmanite rules in 1987: Britain is now paying for it, by suffering more from the international depression than most of its competitors. While the British stuck to monetarism, things worked brilliantly. Britain must never let up on it again.
Economics apart, however, it is apparent that all is far from well in Great Britain. Take the issue of the safety of citizens. British big towns are not as dangerous as, say, New York; but they are not safe either. Indeed, it cannot be denied that there is a level of violence, drug
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