Learners ask lots of questions.  It’s not surprising.  Unravelling educational opportunities can be a baffling process.

And if one tangle causes more angst, and generates more queries, than most, it must be “Will my qualification be recognised.”   Alas, there are no simple answers.

For starters, every year brings changes – in come foundation degrees, diplomas, or A* A-levels;  up come IGCSEs; down and out go NVQs; and so on.

True, there is (or will be soon) a UK qualifications framework in place.   Which may, or may not, use the language of levels we currently use;  which may, or may not, be similar to the European framework.   And which may, or may not, include some of the qualifications you might want to take.

True, there are some awarding bodies that are “recognised by governent”.   But inclusion, or omission, from the current list does not necessarily tell you whether employers and others will in their turn recognise that body.

And will the promised accreditation of awarding bodies by Ofqual parallel the current governmental recognition scheme, or be completely different?   How will it relate to the Sector Skills Councils (I think they still exist, don’t they?  Gosh I must be losing my grip)?   Or the NOS (that’s National Occupational Standards to you)?

Confused?   Join the club.

Independent Assessment

Educational opportunities and courses are, for the most part, controlled by the state:  through funding, through inspections by Ofsted, QAA and friends, and through national curricula.

Awarding bodies, by contrast, can more or less do their own thing.   Their funding comes from fees, not grants, many are firmly in the private sector and such approval and inspection regimes that are in place are pussy cats compared to Ofsted.

There are good reasons for this independence.   Taking assessment out of the hands of teachers arguably makes it more robust and more reliable.

But it also, inevitably, leads to distrust and resentment between those who provide the education (schools and colleges), and those who assess the outcomes (the awarding bodies).

(Mind you, the awarding bodies don’t help themselves by launching “school improvement” services, as Edexcel have just done, blurring the boundary between teaching and assessment still further.   Edexcel may well argue that their new income stream wil be helpful to schools.   Others see it as exploitative, involving “conflicts of interest” to the point at which is becomes a “kind of madness”)

You Get What You Pay For

No surprise, then, that colleges (well, the 157 Group of colleges, at least) have said they are planning to set up their own awarding body, at least according to TES.

Why?   To save money.   As Lynne Sedgmore, CEO of the 157 Group, delicately puts it, “adopting an employee-led mutual approach to awarding qualifications will enable significant financial efficiencies, through shared services and by keeping public sector funds within the FE sector, rather than feeding surpluses into private stakeholder profits”.

In short, colleges are fed up of fat cats feasting off the FE sector.   So they’re fighting back.

And the spoils are worth fighting for.   Colleges paid over an estimated £200 million in fees to awarding bodies last year.   Surely keeping such sums within the college community makes sense?

But is it what learners want?   Another awarding body to add to the legions already out there?   More risks of “conflicts of interest” when those who provide are in bed with those who assess?

Isn’t it yet another messy compromise, forced on colleges by the grim determination of the government to save money, whatever the cost?

Surely the answer is for the government to take much firmer control of qualifications.   Qualifications, like it or not, are now the currency of educational ability.  Qualifications supply should no more be left to an unregulated private sector, than money supply should be left to private sector banks

Qualifications are the one area of education where regulation is required.    And where do they find the resources to do that?   By relieving providers of some of the stifling burden of regulation that is currently crushing education in this country.    Why not leave more provision to the private sector which, time and time again, proves that it can do a good job.

Sources 157 Group;
Edexcel

And, inevitably, the HE community has responded with a round of retaliatory fusillades.    A Guardian piece from Malcolm Grant, head of University College London, for example, calling for student places to be cut rather than funding, generated over 200 comments in its first day; or about one every 7-8 minutes.

There have to be changes to HE.    I think everybody acknowledges that.   But finding consensus as to what those changes should be is a bit more tricky.   All too easily it ends up with a parade of prejudices (loans are better; grants are better; no, no taxes are best; no, no, shorter degrees; no, no, distance learning is the key, etc etc) and a menagerie of hobby-horses being trotted out into the parade ring for general ridicule, or whatever.

That said, there are a number of truths which are worth repeating, not least because they are too easily overlooked.

What is HE for?

One, there are a lot more students in HE now than there were 40 years ago.    That has changed the nature of HE.    It is, like it or not, more vocational.

At the size the sector has become, it has to be;  we are not rich enough to indulge in HE on such a scale simply for its own sake.

But HE must be more than vocational.    The way we have gone risks losing sight of other, equally important goals.    (As one pundit put it, when the polytechnics became the new universities, a few decades ago, the result was not the increase the number of universities in the country, as politicians liked to claim, but to force all universities to become polytechnics.)

We need, as a nation, first class scholarship and research. We need it both for enhanced prosperity, but also for cultural enrichment, for a sense of a civilisation growing, not stagnating.

Most of that research is best undertaken in universities. And most researchers (and therefore their research) benefit from having to teach as well.

But then to argue that all “universities” need to do research is rubbish. You have only to wade through the acres of educational research papers, as I do from time to time, to know that most of it is tripe, of no value other than to offer some small boost to the academic credibility of its authors within their own, ultimately incestuous, communities.

So we need a range of different types of HE institution.   We need an elite where scholarship at its best can be pursued, unfettered by petty political and economic considerations.   But we only need a handful of such institutions, not 50 or 100.

We need institutions dedicated to research across the whole range, from blue sky to green-fingered, but where new generations of researchers are trained as well.

And we need a wide range of institutions dedicated to training graduates equipped to enter the many and varied professions we need for society to flourish.

They don’t all need to be called universities.   Indeed, it is probably counterproductive to do so, since it implies similarities of purpose and outlook that simply are inappropriate.

Where should HE be?

Alongside the debate as to what, is where.   If more students went to university in their home town, argue some, they could live at home, and everything would cost less.   Or how about doing more of it by distance learning?

Yes but, argue the opponents, something of the essential rite of passage of “going to university” would be lost.

Even worse, argues Jonathan Wolff in another Guardian piece, the “danger of distance learning is that it may make second-class citizens of students who choose it”.   It is cheaper, and hence more likely to appeal to lower socio-economic groups.  And they will miss out on the other benefits of “going to uni” which, as university outputs become  more uniform, employers will increasing look to as a way to differentiate the excellent from the ordinary.

That is a very biased view.   For instance both the Open Universities of the UK and the Netherlands show higher levels of student satisfaction than almost any comparable face-to-face universities in their respective countries.   And much of that springs from the much higher levels of commitment and dedication their students bring to their undergraduate experience.

Distant is different, true.   But distant can be better, Professor Wolff.   It certainly doesn’t have to be worse.

It is different.   But different individuals want different opportunities and experiences.  One size only fits all if it is shapeless.    We need to fit our HE to our needs.

Sources: Vince Cable; Malcolm Grant; Jonathan Wolff

The need is clear.   Qualifications matter.   Qualifications are the route to jobs.   No qualifications, no job.  So the qualification industry grows inexorably, year on year.

What’s more, more and more jobs need higher and higher levels of qualification ( a trend I call Qualification Inflation).  For example, from chiropodists to policemen,  prison officers to nurses, more and more occupations are becoming (or threatening to become) graduate only.

And not just any old graduates.    Take today’s story that, in future, three-quarters of all employers will “require a 2.1 degree”.  (Mind you, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, many centuries ago, the rumours doing the rounds were that the people with the best salaries all got thirds because they were, so the story went, less bookish, and more entrepreneurial.   Can’t see that happening now).

But then comes the pressure, from employers and others, to know what qualifications mean, how reputable are they, and how you can compare, one with another.   Hence the idea of a national framework and regulator for qualifications.

But, somehow, we can’t seem to get it right.   First QCA, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, messed up over exams (allegedly).   So it became two, Ofqual, the regulator;  and QCDA, the developer.

Then the Tories (as, in fairness, they said they would) abolished QCDA in the first tranche of quango eradication.

Now Kathleen Tattersall, Chair of Ofqual, had resigned.   Why?   Well, she says it’s in the “best interests of the sector”.

Is it?   Wasn’t when she was appointed.   So what’s changed?

I thought you only fell on your sword if you had failed, were in despair, or were told to do so by your superiors.   Wonder which it is in this case?

As for the good Mr Gove, he has accepted without hesitation, or so it seems, and promised to “strengthen the independence” of Ofqual.

And that, as I pointed out in my last post on NEC, is one of those stock, meaningless phrases that politicians trot out when they want to be seen to be doing something.   Independent from whom?   The good Mr Gove?   Public demand?   Fashion?

And where does that leave the qualifications framework.   Are the Tories trying to bring down qualification inflation as well as ordinary inflation;  take us back to a time where judgements were made about people, rather than the pieces of paper they clutched in their hands?   That would be grand.   But about as likely as flying pigs.

Sources: 2.1 degrees; Ofqual

Sounds good to me.   But a group of NEC old hands think otherwise and, in a letter to TES, regret the loss of NEC’s independence that this will entail.

I read their letter carefully.   I found myself sympathising with them.   They care about the NEC they knew and loved;  they’re anxious as to its future, and want to be heard.

Fair enough.   But as I mulled over the detail or their arguments, I started to wonder.

NEC has been a “seedbed for imaginative educational thinking” they say.   Well, so has LSN.   So surely it is reasonable to assume that the merged body will be as well.

Of course, you could argue that there’s no guarantee that either, or both, will be innovators in the future.

True.   But then, both bodies are out there in the real world.   Competing.   NEC was set up in a world in which not only was education seen to be a public good, but the public expected, and was willing, to support public goods through taxes and donations.

Education, particularly adult education, has moved on (or back, or down, depending on your prejudices) since then.   NEC faces all the same pressures that any private provider faces.

And no-one in the private sector talks about “independence”.    You don’t hear Tesco or Asda stressing the importance of staying “independent”.   It’s a meaningless notion.  They are already totally “independent”;  they can sell what they like.    But in so far as they have to be profitable, they’re totally dependent.   On keeping their customers happy.

If you have to survive in the private sector, you have to give the market what it wants.   You can still strive for quality, innovation, even a modicum of social justice.   But bottom lines are bottom lines.

You might regret this.   You might think (as I do) that taxation and state funding can be “good things”, and that the “big state” doesn’t have to be a “bloated” one.   But get real.   This government, and its successors, will pay only for the bare minimum.   If that.   The likes of NEC, for better or worse, are on their own.

And that means profits, partnerships, mergers.   Hankering after some long lost “independence” is just idle chatter.

Private isn’t necessarily worse than public.   But it is different.   I worry, as do many, that there is rather too little public sector left in education, particulary at school and university level.   But equally I’m clear that the private sector has a vital role to play, and NEC can, should, and hopefully will, remain one of its more important and innovative players.

Sources Merger Press Release ; Letter to TES

Anyway, it set me thinking about my own childhood.   Now, that definitely wasn’t a never-never-land.   And I don’t just mean that we were poor.   I mean that, as a matter of principle, my parents, no matter how much they wanted something, absolutely refused to buy it on the never-never, or hire-purchase, as the 50s equivalent of the credit card was called.   It wasn’t just that credit was too risky;  they felt that buying things on credit was immoral.   Like the money lenders Jesus threw out of the temple.

Not any more.   Today’s world is all “live now, pay later”.

Universal Universities?

Take student loans.   I was allowed to go to university because, thanks to a maintenance grant, we could afford it.   If it had been necessary to take out a loan (let alone pay tuition fees), then I wouldn’t have gone.   Simple as that.   Yet if today’s  students took a similar moral stance, our universities would empty overnight.

Loadsa Loans

It’s not just universities.   Lots of adults finance their re-training in IT, interior design, alternative therapies or  plumbing with a career development loan.   It’s a government-sponsored scheme.   And on paper it looks like a good scheme, giving people chances they could not otherwise achieve.

So what’s wrong with them (apart from some outmoded notions of morality that only old fogies like me still cling to)?

Well, being in debt is not a great place to be.   Just ask the Chancellor.   His message, after all, was that we have to go through lots of pain, just to pay off our national debt.   Yummy, yummy.

And what if it doesn’t work?   What if the country goes bust?   What then?

Cough up, or else

Because of the recession, a number of training providers have gone bust.   And those learners who took out a career development loan to finance their studies with them have learnt the hard way what “going bust” means in practice.   They’re left with a loan to pay off, yet nothing to show for it:  no qualification, no course, no opportunity, and no possibility of getting their money back.

So who’s to blame?  The learner, for failing to understand what he was getting into?   The bank for lending him (or her) the money (and demanding it back, even though the provider has disappeared)?   The provider, for going bust?   The government, who set the scheme up in the first place?   Or is it the fault of our modern, seductive, culture of credit?

Paying the Price

Will it get better?   I doubt it.   Take universities again.   25% cuts will mean less places, more universites desperate to raise money however they can and, inevitably, more costs passed on to students.

And were not just talking about the odd extra hundred pounds.   Recent reports tell that at least one university in the States is talking about charging $200,000 for a degree course.   That’s mortgage country.

So, here’s a question, Mr Gove.   How many working class parents are going to take out a second mortgage for £100,000+, in a recession, just to send little Albert (or Albertina) to uni?

But then, the Chancellor’s message is twofold.   One, the State won’t pay.   And, two, too much debt is bad for you.

Where does that leave universities?   Open to competition from the private sector, at least according to another BBC story.   And I’ve no doubt that a few will look to the private sector, especially if the latter can bring down costs, as I’m sure they will.

But the poor will still be stuck.   They’ll either need more state funding, or more loans.   Or they won’t go.

Back with the Lost Boys

Education is our future.   We need to invest in it.   If we are too poor, individually or collectively, to make that investment, we will stay poor.   Indefinitely.   I just hope someone up there realises that, or the future looks bleak.

And Mr Osborne?   Is he being the sensible, realistic chancellor he would have us believe?   Or is he really still stuck in never-never land.

Sources:  US universities; Private universities; 25% cuts to education

I say sadly, since I’m sure the best thing for education would be to declare it an initiative-free zone for the lifetime of this parliament.

That way, all the thousand-and-one changes already inflicted upon it could settle down, and we could work out which ones made sense, and which were just non-sense.

Still, given a new party in power, it was always too much to ask.   And, in fairness, some of their changes are not as daft as others we could mention.

I feel no anguish at the loss of Becta, for example.   Not because it was clearly doing a bad job;  I don’t think given its remit, that it was, necessarily.

But in a world already obsessed with e-everything, spending taxpayers money on facilitating even more e-whatever does look unnecessary, if not downright wasteful.

Similarly, the loss of QCDA will hardly generate a tear, let alone a mass rending of garments.   It was too new and too unfocused on what it was meant to do.   And, anyway, we all knew the Tories would axe it one they got to power.

The loss of the General Teaching Council was less expected, but arguably more welcome.   Or, at least, it will be welcome if it is accompanied by the extirpation of a ridiculous regulatory regime that sought to impose a vision of moral rectitude far beyond the reach of ordinary folk (including, I suspect, most of the members of the GTC itself).   As TES rather naughtily pointed out (11 June), the GTC will “perhaps be best remembered for revealing the extent of porn-viewing on school laptops.”   Quite.

Best of all, for me at least, comes the announcement earlier this month that “The Government has today lifted restrictions that stopped state schools offering iGCSE qualifications in key subjects.   It has also announced its intention to include iGCSE results in school performance tables as soon as possible”.

Here, at least, is a change worth waiting for.   True, we’ve been waiting a long, long time for iGCSEs to be accepted into the mainstream.   Even more reason to cheer.

Not that such pressures are new.   Remember Charles Clarke, when he was education minister back in 2003, disparaging classics as a subject for study at university. “Education for its own sake, opined the minister, was “a bit dodgy”; students “needed a relationship with the workplace”.

So say his successors.   And his predecessors, for that matter.    Almost any recent government document on education starts by linking education to economic well being, arguing that competitiveness, and economic success will only come from vocational courses.

So we all chant the mantra:   vocational is good.   Non-vocational courses must be banished or, at least,  transformed into workplace-facing courses, set about by rules and regulations designed to ensure compliance.

Indeed, the point is pressed almost to absurdity.   One academic friend of mine complained to me recently about all the regulations and rigmarole dumped on his course to make it more vocational.

It’s ridiculous”, he grumbled.    “It’s a course in materials engineering, for heavens sake.   It doesn’t get any more vocational than that.”

Ah, yes.    But ministers know best.   And we want wealth, don’t we?   So we better stick to the mantra.   Shouldn’t we?

On not facing up to the facts

Well, for starters, there are things in life other than money.   Not that you’ll ever convince any politician of that.

But, even if we stick with the narrow vision that wealth equals happiness, that still begs one central question:  does vocational education make us wealthier, either as individuals or as a society?

One new study from the LSE looks at the returns from lifelong learning to individuals, both in terms of income, and social standing.   Does a bit of extra learning (or, more specifically, the qualifications that come with it) make you richer?

And they find, not surprisingly, that, broadly speaking, most forms of lifelong learning do make you better off.

But there are subtleties in the detail.   When they look at level 4 qualifications, for example, they differentiate between vocational and non-vocational qualifications gained.   And they find that:

* academic qualifications at level four make you better off:  financially better off for both men and women, and socially better off for men (but not women, interestingly).

* vocational qualifications at level four do not make you better off.   There is a “lack of any apparent impact of attaining vocational level four qualifications”.

Oh, dear.   All that ministerial rhetoric about needing university courses to be more vocational suddenly looks a bit suspect.   A bit hollow.   Simple-minded at best; crude and misleading at worst.

Of course, its only one finding from one study.   And, anyway, no minister worth his salt will ever let a few facts get in the way of a well-honed prejudice.   So the mantra will go on.   Alas.

Sources: Charles Clarke; Measuring the Returns to Lifelong Learning

But not if it’s education.   Some parents spend a lot of money sending their kids to private schools.   But they rarely boast about it.   ‘Cos if they do, society will slap them down.

And that’s unfortunate.   At least according to the Independent Schools Council Chairman, Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, quoted by the BBC.

“Parents have a right to choose the education for their children . . . [and] should not have to fear the imposition of discrimination, or be made to feel guilty” she argues.

Andrew Grant, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses Conference, rather agrees.

Some wealthy families, he grumbles, you know, the kind who live in £3m houses, wear Rolex watches, drive a BMW seven series, and take three or four holidays a year, take a perverse pride in not spending money on education.   They’d rather send their kids to the local comprehensive.

Of course, their local comprehensive will reflect the affluence, and mores, of its catchment area.   So it’s no real sacrifice.   Not like little Thomasina has to be bused to some inner city school to mix it with kids from the local Council estate.

But why are they so reluctant to buy education?

Because education is not that important?   I doubt it.   Most middle class mums, whatever their faults, want the best for their kids.

Meanness, perhaps?   But, then, they wouldn’t buy the bling, or the hols in Bermuda either.

No, it’s more than meanness.   It’s something to do with a widespread prejudice against the private sector in education, and real moral pressure “not to use your disposable income for the education of your children”.

You can flaunt your wealth on designer clothes, posh cars, weekends in Gran Canaria and the like.   But not, it seems, on education.

And that’s a shame.   Because the private sector is actually quite good at education.   It gets good results.   It generates successful people.   It has, in reality, a lot to be proud of.

And much of this excellence comes from its flexiblility.  It can respond to individuals as individuals, freed from the dead hand of state control.

And, says Dame Judith, quoted in TES, it must stay that way.   It’s not just new labour that tries to stifle education with excessive controls.   She’s bothered about Tory plans to try to persuade private schools to join the state sector.

She hopes, and believes, that only a very few will actually take up the offer.   “Our (private) schools”, she argues, “value their independence and the freedom they get in relation to the curriculum, the ability to include more art, music and sport and they value the fact that they are not over-regulated”.

Only those that are struggling will be tempted, she argues.

Trouble is, as the old saying goes, take the King’s shilling and you’ll end up dancing to the King’s tune.

That may not be so bad for those that likes the tune.   But it’s bad for the rest of us.   If only one tune is allowed, we’ll soon get sick of it.

And ministers know only one tune.   Economic prosperity.   State education is fast becoming  a production line.   The manufacturing model whose aim is to output units of economic generation and consumption as effectively and efficiently as possible, has taken hold.

Society needs real, rounded people, and an education system that will produce such people.  Not drones.

The private sector may not be perfect.   But we can still take a pride in its achievements.

Can’t we?

Sources:  BBC story; TES 12 March, p13

We understand that.   That’s why, in recent years, a whole regiment of regulatory overseers (or should that be overlookers?) have come into being, most with names that sound a bit off, you know, like Ofwat, Ofgen or Ofqual.

Of all these various governmental offshoots, Ofsted is one of the most senior.   And, unlike most of its regulatory brethren, whose raison d’etre is to provide a necessary counterbalance to a set of big industrial beasts like Royal Mail, the banks or the energy companies, Ofsted regulates a mass of financial and political minnows;  schools who have neither the money nor the muscle to fight back.

And that gives Ofsted power.   A lot of power;  more than most of its regulatory siblings.   It can condemn and close schools.   It can drive headmasters to distraction and, in extreme cases, even to suicide.

Yes, indeedy, in the jungles of education, there are no bigger beasts than Ofsted.

But, as we’ve already established, big beasts need regulating.   So who regulates Ofsted?

Not ministers.   In most areas, ministers are meant to be in charge.   And that has its uses.   The odd scandal, the merest hint of a ministerial back unprotected, and any regulator can expect a sharp rebuke, or worse.   Ministers are, after all, anwerable to the media.

But Ofsted is answerable only to parliament.   It is, it proudly boasts, free of ministerial meddling.   That gives it a modicum of political independence.

But it also means that it can do more or less what it likes.   For two reasons.   One, because parliament has other things on its mind – elections, the economy, wars and the like – and has little time to bother about Ofsted.

And for another, as the recent expenses scandals have amply demonstrated, parliament cannot even regulate its own excesses, let alone those of its unruly offspring like Ofsted.

So if Ofsted can do as it pleases, that makes it all the more important that schools have some practical, affordable and potentially effective way to challenge Ofsted, and appeal against  its rulings.

But they don’t   At least, according to a story in TES.    Recent changes now mean, say union experts, reported in TES, that “schools now lack any effective way of challenging Ofsted on judgements they believe are unfair.

Not a problem, says an Ofsted spokesperson.   “There is nothing to prevent a parent or school asking Ofsted to bring forward the inspection if they believe something has gone wrong in a previous inspection, and Ofsted would give this thorough consideration”.

Breathtaking.   Almost unbelievable.   Ofsted knows best, and no-one can contradict them,   You cannot challenge Ofsted, since the only people  who can check whether Ofsted’s judgements are fair are Ofsted itself.

That is close to absolute power.   And absolute power . . . .

Source:  TES, 12 March, p4

I hated sport at school.   Dismal afternoons of being bussed off to some bleak, windswept field that even the sheep shunned, just to kick a ball about for an hour.   Utterly pointless.   And nothing to do with education.

Oh, but how wrong I was.   Not about the lack of learning;  the only thing I learnt from such afternoons was just how much I hated sport.   No, what I failed to grasp was this was the model for the education of the future.

Learning was to become no longer the primary purpose of education.   Schools were moving to a new sporting model.

Under it, the curriculum was divided into various disciplines, each of which had its own rules (or syllabus), laid down by governments, and often lacking any real logic (see previous post, “Play up, and Play the Game”).   And within those rules, you trained, under the watchful eye of a coach (or trainer).

Gyms for the mind

I’m not alone in drawing such parallels.   Baroness Deech, the former head of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, last year likened “studying for a university degree to going to the gym: you pay your money, but you have to put in the work to get fit”.

And that same THE piece reported that the University of Sunderland had gone one one stage further, and launched a lifelong-learning scheme that followed the model of gym membership.   Under the strapline “a gym for the mind”, the university is trying to sell its traditional lifelong provision not as individual courses, but as a mental workout centre where, for a monthly fee, you can attend as many sessions as time permits.

Now it is true, I have to accept, that some people, young people in particular, seem actually enjoy going to the gym (can’t think why).   So perhaps such a sales pitch might work.

No Pain, no Gain?

But I worry about this analogy between learning and physical exercise.   After all, not many athletes train just for the sake of training.

No, no, training is too much like hard work.   Long hours of tedium, needing not only dedication but a certain tolerance to pain.   The process of learning is portrayed at best as a necessary evil, at worst as a waste of time.   A way to beat your competitors.

For what matters is not the process, but the outcome.   That final, glorious day of the game when, all opposition trounced, you became the proud possessor of the prize:  the gold medal, the championship, or the coveted qualification.

Learning is being sidelined;  an activity that human beings instinctively enjoy is being perverted into a painful necessity.

Ends by any means

And, just as in sport, the aim for many becomes not just to achieve that end, but do so with the minimum amount of effort.   Corners are, after all, there to be cut.

If an athlete wants to cut corners, they take drugs.   Whereas the scholar . . . . ?

Takes drugs too.   Apparently.   Both universities and schools are seeing increases in the use of smart drugs, or “nootropics” to enhance academic performance:  drugs to keep you focussed like modafinil (Provigil), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and amphetamine (Dexedrine);  drugs to help you memorise like brahmi, piracetam (Nootropil), donepezil (Aricept) and galantamine (Reminyl).

Drugs?   Goodness me;  that’s hardly cricket.   Getting unfair advantage by taking drugs.   Could be the end of education as we know it.   Woe and thrice woe.   What’s to be done.

Well, in sport they know what to do.   Ban the drugs.   And introduce random drug tests for the competitors.

So, no surprise then that some academics are calling for similar measures to be introduced in education.   The latest is Professor Sahakian of Cambridge, who (according to the Metro newspaper earlier this week) used a Royal Institution Lecture to argue that universities should take these issues seriously.

Banning is, unfortunately, a bit of a problem, not least because many of these drugs are freely available.    Some, like caffeine, are even used by educators themselves.   Shameful.

So random drugs testing before and after exams seems the logical solution.

Oh, sure, the odd fuddy-duddy might object to taking urine samples straight after an exam.   But, says Professor Sahakian, we should at least consider it.   After all, we have to face facts.   Cheating has to be rooted out.

Distant Difficulties

Mind you, the random drug testing of distance learners is particularly difficult.   Even if you can find a way to be sure the urine comes from the right person, you still have to get it to the tester and that, in these days of Royal Mail strikes, is far from assured.

Indeed, it could be suggested that this is simply one more trick from the face-to-facers to try to stamp out distance learning.

I wouldn’t know about that.   I’m not that cynical.   (No, I’m not.   Really.)   But I would advise distance learning providers to be prepared.   Buy your drug-testing kits today.   Forewarned is forearmed.

And Future Fusions

Of course, in the long term, even this problem will disappear.   For two reasons.

One is that the current quest for isms (sexism, racism, ageism and, most recently, sizism, according to the BBC) will eventually culminate in the recognition of abilityism as the last bastion of unfair discrimination.

Under laws then to be introduced, it will become illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of ability alone:  everyone must be given equal opportunities, regardless of ability.

Politicians, as ever, are leading the way.   There’s clearly no discrimination on the grounds of ability in politics;  how else would we be lumbered with the lot we’ve got at present?.

This will, inevitably, be extended to all professions.   Oh, sure, some die-hards will argue that some exceptions should be allowed (eg brain-surgeon).  But I’m confident that common sense will eventually prevail and that even these last pockets of prejudice will be eradicated.

But even such advances will eventually become redundant.   Already, I hear, government scientists are developing a chip that can be programmed with a wide variety of skills (everything from DIY plumbing to how to vote Labour) and implanted into children’s brains so that they can acquire these skills without all that tedious training, thus leaving them free to breed, build effigies of Tony Blair, consume the planet and fulfil all those other responsibilities that will be required of the 22^nd Century citizen.

Ah, it makes you feel good just to think about it.

Sources: Metro Newspaper, 22 February, p21 Professor Sahakian

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=408593 gyms

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/increase-academic-doping-could-spark-routine-urine-tests-exam-students-25723.html drugs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8314125.stm overweight should be protected