Eric Robinson

11.3.10

The erosion of democracy in the Labour Party is not just in education but in everything! 
The SEA is no longer consulted by the party leadership as it used to be e.g. we had enormous influence in the adoption of the comprehensive schooling policy. 
To be a reality local government must have much more autonomy than has recently been contemplated by the party.  And this must include local powers of taxation. 
We would do well to look at other countries' local and institutional democratic powers.  Many are far ahead of us.  In Germany and the USA, for example, regional and local autonomy is protected by the constitution and cannot be reduced by national govt.  For example the German govt could not possibly abolish the govt of  Hamburg, or Washington abolish the city govt of New York in the way Westminster abolished the govt of London. 
Eddie Playfair's paper is excellent but it mainly relates to schools.   The lack of democracy is much worse in post-school education.   In the last 20 years it has been a most completely abolished and it has never existed in the universities.
A few years ago I visited  a state university in the USA and was told that its boardroom had become disused.  Board meetings now, by law, had to be open to the public and the boardroom was not big enough to accommodate all the spectators.  The Board was regularly elected by the whole electorate of the state.  It could not meet in camera and no more than 3 members of the Board could meet together in private for any reason! 
The practice of democracy has to be learnt.  We need to recreate political education within the party.

Andy Burkitt

10.3.10

I want to support totally the Eddie Playfair paper. Unless we get local democracy in action, we will continue to get disengagement from local and national politics.

Quickly looking at the four recommendations:

 1 Unless there are clear MINIMUM entitlements (gradually improved EVERY year) there will never be a clear understandable system. Those standards should inform the funding debate.

2 Agree totally – sooner the better. Unless again there is local control, people can never exercise control over an increasingly centrist system.

3 Agree with the role of students crucial as part of their education on democracy.

4 Agree plus a totally independently voted select committee receiving reports and initiating debates.

Richard Pring

10.3.10

Given the clear division between central and local democratic control of education, all should be aware of the timetable for the devolution of funding and responsibility for post 16 from the LSC to Local authorities. 
This is a crucial time for making sure that there really is local consultation, involvement and control. So much will be decided about the nature and health of local partnerships as soon as the transition takes place in April.

Eddie Playfair

8.3.10

Democracy in Education.

Why local democracy in education?  This may seem a superfluous question but if we live in a unitary state with a democratically elected government and we seek to change education policy by winning state power through elections it is worth questioning what the added value is of a local level of democracy in education. After all, when Labour governments committed to comprehensive re-organisation were elected nationally this was thwarted in some Tory controlled areas wedded to a selective system. Is local democracy simply another brake on policies which have won national support and should we return to the notion of a national system locally administered? [continue here]

Richard Hatcher

11.10.09

A framework for local democracy in the school system.

In his comments on the Anti Academies Alliance position on trust schools, Martin Doré said that ‘It would be very helpful to our cause if a distilled version of the key components of a good framework for local democracy were included in our campaign materials. The SEA would thus be able to counter claims that we merely and solely oppose every new development in education.’ I’d like to suggest some ideas for such a framework. [continue here]

Editor

In an interview with The Independent recently*, former Labour education minister Shirley Williams asked for a return of the polytechnics which, she said, “were never second rate universities”. She also called for the abolition of A-levels and said the real tragedy of the Blair government had been to reject the findings of the Tomlinson inquiry.

Challenged to comment, Eric Robinson replies as follows:

Eric Robinson

6.10.09

Shirley Williams is right both about A-levels and about the polys. She understates the case. 

A-levels are an archaic survival from the hey-day of the single subject, academic honours degree. A-levels derived from the higher school certificate which derived from the Inter BA and the Inter BSc which in turn 
derived from what had been the first year of university study. A-levels constitute a generally narrow curriculum which is a great weakness of English higher education - it is far too specialist far too early. It leads to graduates in science and technology who have poor literacy and graduates in the humanities who know little of maths and science. One consequence of this over-specialisation is that England is the only country in the world which turns out PhDs who do not know the meaning of the word "philosophy" . 

One of the great achievements of the polys was greatly to extend the range of degree studies, particularly multidisciplinary such as business studies and in art and design, so that the single subject academic honours degree is now the pre-occupation of only a minority of university undergraduates. For the majority of students the subject content of A-level programmes bears little relationship to the content of their degree studies and it certainly constitutes a very poor general education. For these students the A-level programme is a rite of passage and a waste of time and energy. 

The polys led the way in opening access to HE by admitting students coming other than via VIth forms and A-levels. They recruited many mature students. They developed new forms of part-time education. They 
established, through the CNAA, new standards in the preparation and presentation of degree studies. Generally their first degree programmes were better and better taught than those of the established universities. They gave a clear priority to teaching rather than research. 

Much of this was possible because their development was not controlled by the established universities and was untainted by some of their traditions and inhibitions. 

When the polys were converted into universities some of this innovation began to erode. The change of name was not in itself significant, but it meant that the former polys became subordinated to the established university system. It was rather as though rugby league had been admitted to become the fourth division of rugby union and was expected to play by union rules. 

Shirley's comment is apposite because the reform of English universities generated by the polys is incomplete. Mass HE demands greater flexibility than the old concept of the English university as the extension of middle class boarding school. Academic constipation remains dominant and the former polys are uptight. They should shed their deference and retake the lead in developing affordable access to HE for all. This is not the absurdity it might seem - in the middle classes HE is now the norm.