PRIORITY MOTION - 14-19 EDUCATION AND SKILLS WHITE PAPER : AN ATTACK ON COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION

Conference considers that the 14-19 Education and Skills White Paper represents a new stage in the attack on Comprehensive Education. Conference is very disappointed at the Government’s rejection of the Tomlinson proposals which, despite the shortcomings identified by the Union, would have at least allowed practitioners to feel confident about future 14-19 reform and the ending of the academic-vocational divide. Conference rejects the proposals for ‘skills academies’ and specialist vocational schools.

Conference believes further that the White Paper fails to address the needs of young people who are not able to meet the Government’s arbitrary threshold of 5 A-C grades of GCSE.

Conference is seriously concerned that the educational opportunities for many students post-14 could now be reduced to a basic skills core, a narrow vocational pathway or extended workplace learning.

Conference notes the Government’s rejection of Tomlinson’s proposals to ensure sufficient funding for 14-19 curriculum and qualification reform.

Conference notes also the Government’s rejection of international evidence from the OECD which affirms that the best national education systems are those where the needs of all young people are met within single, non-diverse systems of well resourced provision.

Conference believes that post-14 education must bring down barriers to high quality education. Conference, therefore, reaffirms its commitment to comprehensive education.

Conference instructs the Executive to give the highest priority to campaigning against the White Paper’s proposals to open up the vocational and academic divide and to campaigning for a comprehensive 14-19 education system.

Conference reasserts its belief that 14-19 reform should:

(i)lead to an integrated diploma system based on the NUT’s policy document ‘The Road to Equality’;

(ii)meet the needs of 16 year olds who achieve currently fewer than 5 A-C grades at GCSE, or the equivalent, through the positive recognition of achievement at every level;

(iii)contribute to removing gaps in achievement between different groups of young people, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, disability or socio-economic background;

(iv)provide routes for progression through programmes of learning which motivate rather than exclude young people;

(v)provide a guarantee of access to a balanced and broadly based curriculum for all young people, which would both provide a curriculum entitlement and which would be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of students who are at risk of disaffection;

(vi)provide sufficient resources to enable students who have access to high quality guidance so that they can make choices, from age 14, which would not limit future opportunities;

(vii)lead to programmes which draw on academic, vocational and occupational routes, not divide such routes into separate pathways; and

(viii)be predicated on the understanding that education is vital both to society and to the economy.

Conference instructs the Executive to:

(a)work with all those who oppose the White Paper’s proposals and with those who support the principles behind Tomlinson but continue to campaign for the NUT’s policies.

(b)work closely to develop a common approach with as many education unions as possible, but particularly with NATFHE and AUT;

(c)highlight the importance of 14-19 reform promoting and developing comprehensive education for the 21st century;

(d)create a partnership with those who support the principles of the Tomlinson Report in order to secure broad support for the NUT’s proposals;

(e)as part of its campaign to press the new government to adopt its proposals, seek support for those proposals from the TUC and its affiliates; and

(f)convene a conference promoting the NUT’s policies on 14-19 reform as soon as possible after the General Election.