For immediate release
Former Education Secretary, Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, will criticise the Conservatives’ contradictory policies on the National Curriculum when he appears before the Children, Schools & Families Select Committee of the House of Commons today.
Mr Blunkett will give evidence as part of the Select Committee’s enquiry into testing, assessment and the National Curriculum at 5.15pm in the Wilson Room, Portcullis House.
Speaking ahead of the session, Mr Blunkett highlighted comments made by Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove to The Times on Saturday; and the Tories’ previously announced intention to abolish the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and exempt successful schools from government control.
Mr Blunkett said: “The Conservatives can’t seem to decide whether they want to reward successful schools with greater autonomy – including, potentially, letting them opt out of the National Curriculum entirely – or whether to prescribe, down to the last textbook, what children should be reading and learning.
“On Saturday, Michael Gove told us that history should be taught ‘like a narrative’, that children should be learning poems and kings and queens by heart and even that it would be much better if they sat in specific rows when they were in class.
“This level of control sits ill at ease with his commitment to abolishing the QCDA and letting those schools to which he grants freedoms have much greater flexibility.
“The real danger, however, is that key areas for the future, like citizenship education, will be ditched as headteachers concentrate solely on the areas for which they will get accolades from the Secretary of State. In a system with no curriculum and no separate authority, they will get plaudits for doing what the Secretary of State wants.
“This muddle-headed and contradictory approach is no way to reform our schools and will fail totally to equip young people for the years to come.”
ENDS
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