The future of education, are we any closer to knowing?
Earlier this year, several initiatives were launched that intended to gather and expose thinking around aspects of the future of education. Others have followed and now there are at least seven reviews ongoing – see below.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment encouraged everyone embarking on these reviews to consider the available evidence in forming views. To help, we produced a series of 12 outline principles for the future of education, borne out of our own international research and analysis of others’ thinking. Importantly, we didn’t limit ourselves to commentary solely about assessment in England. Education is an ecosystem, with clear interdependencies between teaching, learning and assessment, and there is much to be learnt from experiences around the world.
Over the intervening 6 months we have been reflecting each week on different aspects of our principles through a compendium of blogs and live online discussions. We have contributed new research, like our analysis of high stakes assessment in high-performing jurisdictions around the world. We have countered misperceptions where they have been stated, such as the notion that recovery learning is novel and comes with a high price tag. And we have summarised important themes that show the importance of policy formation being driven strongly by evidence, given the experiences of some other countries.
We have also been pleased to be asked to contribute our thinking to some of the reviews being conducted, and to speak with others who have a shared interest though meetings, briefings and speeches. We have been particularly pleased by the extent of the engagement on social media, both in terms of the support received for the principles, but also the degree of challenge that has come too. It is precisely why we have characterised our thinking as ‘outline’ - while it provides a strong sense of direction, fine-tuning and refinement is essential for the right forward-facing policy.
We would encourage others to adopt this spirit too, because myths and false ideas continue to bubble to the surface. For example, an article in The Times in mid-July quoted a number of former government ministers talking about a need to scrap GCSEs. We saw, once again, examples of misleading assertions about assessment around the world. If we are to get to the right policy conclusions on these biggest of issues we must be prepared to defer to facts and not repeat fictions. The solutions need to be genuinely socially constructed.
We are now in the process of planning our own work for the next few months. We intend that this will include publication of a Cambridge University Press & Assessment position paper, that summarises in greater depth what we have found. In the meantime, we would be interested in hearing your thoughts on any additional research or contributions to the debate that need to be undertaken. And if you’re interested in receiving updates from us, please do get in touch, and we can make sure you don’t miss out.
