HOWZAT

In 2000 my successor as chief inspector, Mike Tomlinson, announced that in future inspection was to be “something we do with schools rather than to schools”. The school was to be a partner in its own inspection, but, Tomlinson added defensively, “the rigour and objectivity of inspection” will not be affected.

It has, of course. In 2005 a new system of inspection based on the school’s evaluation of its own performance was introduced. The period of time the inspectors spend in the school has been reduced to a day or two. Most teachers will not even see an inspector. So much for rigour and objectivity.

This new approach to inspection is driven by an analysis of test and examination data. The former, Johnson told us last week, is likely to disappear in any credible form; the latter has for years now been deeply suspect. One of the many crises that drove Estelle Morris from office in 2002 was the unreliability of A-level marking. I know from my Sunday Times postbag that deep concerns remain.

Maybe it does not matter. In 2004 Charles Clarke, the then secretary of state, commissioned Tomlinson to conduct a review into the 14-19 curriculum and examinations. His conclusion, which Tony Blair had the good sense to kick into touch, was that A-levels be replaced by a diploma in which everybody did a bit of everything: some academic work alongside a modicum of work experience, a module of this, a module of that.

Rumour has it that David Miliband, who at the time was a minister in the education department and an enthusiast for this eclectic approach, has set his heart on the education brief if Gordon Brown takes over. If his dream comes true, we’ll all no doubt be waxing lyrical about the good old days when A-levels still, just about, survived.

“Personalisation” is another nonsense which can be traced back to Mr Miliband’s fertile mind. Teachers disappear in their droves to one conference after another to sit at the feet of the latest guru. In time, of course, it will all be forgotten, just as Blunkett and Morris and Clarke and Kelly are all but forgotten. That, though, is no consolation to the children and teachers caught up in this constant experiment. Our children only have one chance at school and it would be nice to know that they were learning something worthwhile. Indeed, now that the tests are to go and inspection has been emasculated, it would be nice to know anything about what they are learning.

Was this really what the prime minister had in mind when back in 1997 he promised us a “world class education system”? A fifth of 11-year-olds leave primary school functionally illiterate. Less than a half of 16-year-olds achieve five GCSE passes including maths and English. The unions have defeated all our efforts to open up state education to public scrutiny.

And, believe it or not, in the very week these sorry exam statistics are made public, the government announces that it is thinking of raising the school leaving age to 18. What possible progress does it think these half literate 16 to 18-year-olds are going to make in a further two years of enforced humiliation. What planet are these ministers living on? The latest absurd proposal is that despite this litany of nonsense and failure the school leaving age is to be raised to 18.

A world class system, then? Tony Blair must be tearing out what is left of his hair. Me, I lament the failure of political courage, but am glad I went.

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