Not too late to change course

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The report of the Assembly Committee on Children and Young People is a welcome one.  They are challenging the Welsh Government on a number of aspects of their education policy.

Two which strike a particular chord for me are the requirement to offer 30 subjects to sixth formers, and the impact of the measure on Welsh language secondary education, particularly at sixth form level.  They are both issues on which I posted a number of times previously during the term of the One Wales Government; and they are both issues which I argued at the time that Government had got badly wrong.

The unpopular proposals for secondary education reorganisation in Carmarthenshire (and elsewhere) were a direct result of the requirement to offer 30 subjects; a number which has always seemed to me to have been arbitrarily plucked from the air.  And that in turn – or rather the reorganisation which it provoked – had a direct negative impact on the availability of Welsh medium education (as opposed to Welsh-medium teaching). 

The result was that a government which seemed in principle, through the historic Welsh language measure, to be promoting the language was in practice, through its education policy, undermining it in its heartland.

There is, though, still time.  It the Government accepts the report of the committee and reverses some of the advice it has been giving to education authorities in Wales, then some of the damage can be prevented, even now.  Will it have the courage to do so?

Competing for customers

Tweet More and more counties are now preparing their plans to re-organise secondary education at the behest of the Assembly Government, and it seems that more and more counties are going to find themselves in the sort of battles which people in Carmarthenshire have been fighting for many months already.

Although not all the councils are coming up with completely identical solutions, the similarity of approach seems to me to undermine the oft-repeated claim by the Assembly Government that this is not being driven from the centre. I have suspected for some time that whatever is being said publicly, this is, in practice, a central agenda, being driven by a combination of carrot and stick.

Part of the rationale, of course, is the Measure passed by the Assembly under which it has been decreed that all pupils must have a choice of at least 30 subjects in years 12 and 13. Whilst there are good arguments for ensuring a wide range of choice, ultimately the figure of 30 is pretty arbitrary. Why not 29, or 31?

But the effect of the number is highly significant, and is leading directly to the closure of some sixth forms, and the merger of others. It's been set at a level which effectively guarantees that counties will have to close or merge a number of smaller secondary schools. I do not believe that is merely coincidental. It's surprising that this arbitrary decision has not been more strongly challenged.

Another factor is the way in which FE colleges were given such a high degree of independence that they are now directly competing with schools for 'customers' (pupils or students to the rest of us!). Yes, that's right, in some of our most rural areas, where critical mass is so important in enabling viable numbers on courses, we have two sets of institutions competing for students, and offering the same courses in the process.

It's set to get worse. Although, in theory, schools and FE colleges can collaborate to reduce duplication, it seems to me that, on current direction of travel, FE colleges – currently looking at mergers and consolidations anyway - will be subsumed into HE institutions in the fairly near future. The result will be that 'school' education finishes at year 11 (GCSE year), and education beyond that happens at multi-campus HE institutions.

That may be the right thing to do, although I happen to be highly sceptical about it. But my real concern is that it is happening by stealth, without adequate public debate or scrutiny.

Funding Education

Tweet Last night, there was a superb concert at Folly Farm by the Greenhill School Orchestra. There was a worry a couple of months ago that the orchestra would have its funding withdrawn, and its supporters called on Plaid, Labour and Conservative politicians for support to retain an outstanding level of musical provision. Thus it was that I found myself sitting in the reserved seats at the back along with the local MP and AM, in a rare display of political unanimity.

The funding crisis was surrounded in some confusion to start with, and it highlighted for me how difficult it can be at times to pin down exactly who is taking which decisions. Schools receive their money from the county council according to a formula set by the county within government guidelines; but the element relating to sixth-form provision is decided by the Assembly Government and seems to be merely passed through the county's books. On top of that, the county may allow additional funding for certain activities such as music.

When the threat to the school orchestra was first highlighted, the finger seemed to be pointing at the Assembly Government for cutting allocations to sixth forms, but that turned out to be something of a misunderstanding. In any event, the funding problem has been sorted out for the very short term, giving a breathing space to ensure the longer term future. The near £5,000 raised by last night's concert will certainly assist.

Moving from the specific to the general, does school funding need to be this complex – so complex that even the governing bodies aren't always clear who has decided what? Why on earth is the Assembly Government directly setting sixth form budgets rather than leaving that to county councils to decide in the same way that they set the rest of the schools' budgets?

It looks like an unnecessary degree of centralisation to me, and almost guarantees a lack of clarity and accountability from the point of view of schools, governors, and parents. It may be convenient for those in authority to be able to blame someone else, but I don't think it makes sense.

I suspect that it's just another part of the less than entirely open agenda of the Education Department in the Assembly Government. There seems to be a desire to move away from sixth forms towards tertiary colleges, which are funded (and therefore controlled) directly from the centre. That's actually a valid policy to espouse (although not one with which I agree), but it's being promoted in a dishonest fashion, through manipulation of funding allocations, rather than through open and honest debate.

Creating financial crises for schools and making sixth forms financially less viable may achieve the ends of those taking the decisions; but it hardly counts as democratic and open decision-making.