This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/01/england-faces-widening-skills-gap-says-outgoing-ofsted-chief

The article has changed 11 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 5 Version 6
England faces widening skills gap, says outgoing Ofsted chief England faces widening skills gap, says outgoing Ofsted chief
(about 4 hours later)
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the outgoing chief inspector of schools in England, has warned that the country faces a widening “skills gap” that threatens its economic prosperity. Sir Michael Wilshaw called for a “radical shake-up” of education for those who don’t go on to university, using his last speech as chief inspector of schools to warn that there was a skills gap threatening the country’s prosperity.
Wilshaw said that while schools continued to improve – with 90% of primaries and 78% of secondaries rated good or outstanding – there were worrying signs over teacher shortages and in further education for young adults. The inspector and former headteacher argued that further education was a “Cinderella” sector overlooked by policymakers, and queried whether class prejudice was the reason. “Is that because this is a sector that educates other people’s children?” Wilshaw said.
“The country is facing serious knowledge and skills gaps that threaten the competitiveness of our economy,” Wilshaw said, unveiling Ofsted’s 2015-16 annual report. “Each year, around 100,000 16-year-olds enroll at a further education college to do technical or vocational courses. How many of them are the children of the powers that be, of national politicians and the commentariat?”
“The decision to leave the European Union has thrown this issue into even sharper relief. As a nation, we can either intervene to inject the system with the vision, skills and energy it needs, or we can be content with the status quo and the consequences of our failure to improve the quality and status of technical education over many years.” Noting that £7bn was spent on further education each year, Wilshaw said: “We can no longer afford to accept mediocrity on such a grand scale. We cannot allow this state of affairs to continue. Things have got to change.”
The proportion of further education colleges rated as good or better had declined from 77% to 71% over the course of the year. Wilshaw also attacked the government’s review of further education provision, which will see underperforming colleges merge in many parts of the country.
“Many further education colleges are facing a period of continued turmoil while the quality of apprenticeship programmes remains patchy,” Wilshaw said. “Merging two poor colleges to create one even larger college is unlikely to improve them and may well make them worse.”
Wilshaw noted that 1.8 million more children were now attending good or outstanding schools in England compared with August 2010, saying there had been “significant improvements even over the five years that I have been chief inspector”. Asked if the poor quality of schooling contributed to the referendum result on the UK’s EU membership, Wilshaw replied: “I’m sure people didn’t go to the polling booth and think, my son or daughter goes to a terrible school, that’s why I’m going to vote to leave the European Union.
“Our schools have also become great forces for social cohesion. We forget what an incredible achievement this is. Whatever cultural tensions exist outside of school, race and religion are not barriers within them,” said Wilshaw, whose term at Ofsted included the Trojan Horse scandal over religious influence in schools in Birmingham. “But it leads to a sense that they are not getting a crack of the whip.
Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: “The chief inspector is right to send a clear warning about the government’s obsession with further structural changes as being the way to raise standards for pupils. “People living in the north can read league tables as well as anyone else ... and they sense that somehow their children are not going to get as good a deal as youngsters in the south of England.”
“What matters is creating the conditions in which teachers can focus on teaching and learning, without unnecessary and wasteful distractions.” Speaking at the launch of Ofsted’s annual report on schools, Wilshaw said there had been a vast improvement overall in schools since he began his career.
Wilshaw said he remained worried that performance in secondary schools in some parts of countries had stagnated, especially in the north-west, where half of secondary schools in Liverpool were ranked poorly. “I taught in some terrible schools in the 1970s. There were schools that were shockingly bad, where there was pupil violence, disruption was the norm and the rest of it. Schools are far better places now.
“Regions that are less prosperous than the south are in danger of adding an education deficit to their economic one,” Wilshaw said. “People were leaving in their droves in inner London in those decades. And I’m not sure that’s the case now.”
Speaking to an audience of school leaders and educationalists in London, including former education secretaries Nicky Morgan and Kenneth Baker, Wilshaw said criticisms of state schools as “bog standard” were “out of date and frankly wrong”. But the former headteacher of Mossbourne Academy in east London said some parents needed to be pushed to do more: “Good heads challenge those parents and say to them, directly, you are not supportive of your children, you are a bad parent, and that’s why your children are failing.”
But he called the shortage of teachers a crisis. Ofsted inspectors report that in the north-west the problem leads to “auctions” as schools compete for staff, he said. Wilshaw noted that 1.8 million more children were now attending good or outstanding schools in England compared with August 2010, saying there had been significant improvements in many parts of the country.
Wilshaw also warned that “too many parents” were opting out of mainstream education for religious or cultural reasons, and called for local authorities to do more to monitor the proliferation of small private schools. “In 2012 when I was appointed I criticised the poor performance of primary schools in Coventry, which was at the bottom of the primary league table which was published in my first report.
“Thanks to the focus and hard work of the local authority and school leaders, the city has turned things around. The proportion of children attending a good or outstanding primary school in Coventry has now more than doubled, from 42% of pupils to 93%.”
The Local Government Association said Ofsted’s latest statistics showed that councils still had a vital role in school improvement.
“With 89% of all council-maintained schools rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted, it is now vital that government recognises councils as their education improvement partners,” said Richard Watts, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board.
Speaking to an audience of school leaders and educationalists in London, including former education secretaries Nicky Morgan and Kenneth Baker, Wilshaw said stereotypes of state schools were “out of date and frankly wrong”.
“I don’t think the many critics of our education system appreciate just how much has changed,” Wilshaw said.
“If they did, perhaps they wouldn’t be so dismissive of a system that has delivered so much to so many over the last number of years.
“Nor would they blithely advocate turning the clock back to a time when the top few percent went to grammar schools and the rest were left with a very threadbare education.”
But Wilshaw said the government was failing in its duty to supply enough teachers: “Everywhere I go, headteachers – particularly secondary heads − tell me how difficult they are finding it to appoint high-calibre teachers.”
His comments came as the Department for Education admitted it was scrapping plans for a national teaching service to recruit teachers to struggling schools.
A freedom of information request by the TES found that the scheme had placed just 24 teachers, having hoped to recruit 1,500 eventually. A DfE spokesperson confirmed the scheme had been quietly shelved.
Wilshaw also warned that too many parents were opting out of mainstream education for religious or cultural reasons, and called for local authorities to do more to monitor the proliferation of small private schools.