What Makes Good Education? The Quality Difference Explained

Education is the basis on which the entire rest of a society stands. The quality of our education, from kindergarten all the way to university, is the determining factor in how the people of a society deal with the world and rise to meet its challenges. It is even more important to us now when schools are grossly underfunded. But what does quality mean?

Looking At Results

The best way to see whether our education system is working or not is to look at the results – Are the kids learning? It’s not enough to do standardized testing. We need to see that they’re becoming responsible, socially aware and able to deal with the challenges of making their way in life. One important aspect of this that can’t be measured by testing is critical thinking. This is the ability to think deeply using a variety of skills including rationality, self-awareness, open-mindedness and discipline. It gives kids the ability to solve problems and make good judgments. Quality education teaches kids to think critically and evaluate situations that confront them objectively.

Teacher Support

Good schools offer their teachers lots of support. This comes in the form of praise, but also in the form of criticism that helps the teacher improve their skill. Like their students, teachers must always continue learning. In good schools, there is plenty of classroom observation and discussion among teachers regarding techniques, educational strategies and peer evaluation. If they can identify each other’s strength and weaknesses, this will lead them to being more productive in the classroom. Quality learning requires this kind of teacher support, even when the school system’s funding isn’t enough.

Educational Resources

Another important sign of quality in education is the array of resources available to kids. This includes not only textbooks and other learning materials, but increasingly also means computers. The personal computer has become an essential part of classroom learning. It makes learning fun and interactive, and also gives kids skills they’ll need in the future. As high school students near graduation, learning how to use computers helps them prepare for their future career, since nearly every career uses computers in some capacity. These days, technology in the classroom has become a sign of quality.

Helping Kids With Special Needs

In good schools, teachers and administrators work hard to make sure that every kid has the same chance. This means ensuring that children with disabilities, whether they are of a physical or learning nature, has their needs met. It’s also important for them to identify kids who are “at risk” of slipping in their studies or having problems with other kids. Although it does cost some money, providing quality for special needs kids is something any school can do, no matter how strained its budget.

Quality learning means preparing kids for their future as adults, making sure they have all the materials they need and providing for kids with special needs. It also requires quality teachers, who need peer review in order to develop their teaching skill. Even in tough economic times, schools must maintain the highest level of quality possible.

When Will You Have to Take an MOT Test?

One thing I am passionate about is good writing. I also believe in respecting professionals. As a British copywriter, who has gone through the state education system and taught English for over 15 years, it amazes me how our politicians still struggle to get it right.

Having a decent education system should be one of the most important priorities for any country. It should be about ensuring young people leave school with real skills so they can contribute to society. Teachers should also be trusted to do their job. This is sadly not the case…

Instead, a succession of government initiatives over the years has resulted in a complete education melt-down. Results are not improving, teachers are leaving the profession and many youngsters start their adult lives without adequate qualifications. What is the answer?

The end of government literacy strategies

A significant shift in education policy is set to make a huge impact on the way schools test their students. National literacy and numeracy policies have finally been scrapped, after 10 long years. The government had no choice but to admit these policies were not significantly improving standards. Of course, the government spin machine played on this move as a positive one for schools, stressing they would have wider freedoms to decide how to spend their curriculum budget.

With the recent decision to end SATs exams for 14 year olds, in favour of 100% teacher assessment, many teachers started to feel positive about the prospect of their professional judgement being recognised at last.

As an English teacher, I had no choice to adopt a teaching style which stifled creativity and unwittingly bored a generation. Under the government guidelines, I had to teach the same as everyone else, in the same way as everyone else. Spontaneity was out … uniformity was in.

Over 15 years, I witnessed a wonderful subject being decimated… Every two years a new initiative would become law, negating all the superb schemes colleagues had built up in that time. There’s little doubt, if government allowed teachers to use their professional judgement, more students would leave school able to read, write and communicate effectively.

Introducing the new ‘Licence to teach’

Recently the aptly named Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, announced teachers need to pass an MOT ‘test’ every 5 years, to prove they are ‘fit to teach.’ For teachers, it is yet another attempt to dumb down their professionalism. For the politicians, it’s a ploy to ‘weed out’ bad teachers and hold teachers accountable for pupils’ failings. While accountability is important, the reality is it will heap even more pressure on teachers and cost a fortune to implement. Regulation, red-tape and endless hair-brained schemes have ruined the careers of many fine teachers. Bureaucratic decisions, placing unnecessary restrictions on an already overloaded profession, are killing off everything that’s good about education today.

Nowadays, it’s all about targets, statistics, league tables… Children, teachers and schools are literally being set up to fail… Data is used as a weapon to determine whether pupils and teachers are performing. And, this new ‘licence to teach’ will demoralise teachers even further.

Hoop-jumping added to the curriculum

Professional development must play a positive role in every profession. But, it seems teachers have to constantly jump through ever-decreasing hoops to ‘prove’ they can do the job. With Ofsted, Performance Management and the Threshold ‘payment-by-results system,’ teachers are constantly assessed as it is.

In the first place, teachers go through a stringent teacher training course, followed by a one year probationary year and then have annual targets to meet. Should a teacher’s performance be deemed ‘unsatisfactory,’ a competency procedure is put in place.

If teachers have to keep earning their ‘licence to teach,’ shouldn’t MPs undergo similar tests, to check whether they can do the job or not? Will this new system apply to head teachers, inspectors and parents? When is it going to end?

Reaching out to a troubled generation

During the last 5 years of my teaching career, there was a noticeable shift away from students seeing the relevance of learning writing and reading skills. Many youngsters in this 21st century generation simply don’t value their education. For any nation, this is a horrifying notion.

With the upsurge of violence and disruption in British classrooms, it’s hard to see how this situation can be resolved. Head teachers exclude violent pupils less, in a bid to meet exclusion targets. And, many teachers at the front line of education have to try and ‘perform’ miracles in this battle ground.

There are, of course, some superb schools in Britain … and countless teachers committed to learning. Equally, many young people are an inspiration and truly value the opportunities education gives them. As a former teacher, I can only hope the government work harder at making education relevant to young people. With the introduction of more ‘vocational’ subjects, there is a chance non-academic British youngsters will come to see school as a positive influence in their lives.

It is shame many teachers won’t stay in the profession long enough to witness future changes… With teacher MOTs adding to an already over-burdened system, the road ahead for British education remains a shaky one.

Nikki Cooke is founder of The Word Well, a freelance copywriting service based in Oxfordshire. Along with her technical director Jean, she provides first-class on and offline marketing solutions to small and medium sized businesses.