Not exactly a cultural revolution

nick cowen, 13 February 2008

School children are to be mandated 5 hours of ‘culture’ a week by the latest government initiative. This hour-per-school-day prescription seems to be the government’s answer to every education issue, as it defines more and more of every state school schedule through Whitehall guidance. This follows on from the five hours of mandated sport a week designed, in part, to tackle obesity. Bureaucrats should be careful not to overdo this wheeze. After all, secondary schools still have to cope with teaching maths and English to pupils who didn’t manage to pick up those basic skills during their …err… compulsory numeracy and literacy hours at primary school!

While critics of the education system are frequently accused of trying to undermine teachers and their efforts, little could be as patronising and destructive to teacher autonomy as a policy initiative that assumes that teachers are not already rather more aware of the value of drama, music and art to children’s development than Whitehall mandarins. What we need is a system that will unleash teachers’ underused expertise, rather than one that will force them to conform to ever more stringent curriculum requirements. More detailed commentary is available from Simon Heffer, TPA’s Burning our money and the anonymous GP, ‘Dr Crippen’.