William Kitchen: Northern Ireland will have an education system which values excellence, one in which teachers are central to the development of children with high expectations
Shifts in educational thinking are rarely as monumental as those announced by the Minister for Education this past week, in his TransformED NI strategy.
He boldly asserted “Change is coming”, and in my opinion, it is long overdue.
The focus of the minister’s educational overhaul will be curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and qualifications. These are four pillars of the education system, so it is fair to say that this is a radical and ambitious agenda for change.
By focusing on what is taught (the curriculum), how it is taught (pedagogy), and how it is monitored (assessment and qualifications), we are promised an entirely new form of education in Northern Ireland should this strategy be implemented.
The key curricular shift in this new approach is towards a so-called ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum. This is a curricular approach which espouses the value of knowledge foundations being deeply embedded, and the application of that knowledge (skills) being seen as dependent upon that knowledge base.
Core knowledge structures are to be woven into the fabric of lessons, so that the application of that knowledge is founded in robust and coherent structures.
This is an evidence-informed approach to curriculum design, which is sweeping the international educational stage with significantly improved learning outcomes for children in the countries which have adopted this approach so far. The minister mentioned his learnings from countries like Singapore, Estonia, New Zealand, and parts of Scandinavia.
What is particularly alarming about this revelation is that upon taking the education brief, the minister admitted to realising just how far behind NI had begun to fall, not least because those charged with implementing and reviewing the curriculum had allowed our system to stagnate. Evidence was being overlooked; ideology was passively (or otherwise) driving education.
When evidence is ignored, and when best-practice is overlooked, the education system fails the children who it is supposed to empower.
This was also the case in understanding the approach to teaching – pedagogy – both in terms of how teachers deliver lessons, but also in terms of how we measure the learning itself. In the minister’s new policy, teachers are to be reinstated to their rightful place within the system, drivers of learning with authority and professionalism.
In order to bring about these changes, he has appointed an international panel of world-renowned experts, as well as panels of principals from primary and secondary schools across NI. The minister is listening to these experts and key stakeholders, and his drive for change is underpinned by their input.
In short, for the first time since 2007, Northern Ireland’s parents and children can look forward to being able to access an evidence-informed and data-driven education system, which is built to improve learning outcomes, and enhance children’s life chances.
This will be an education system which values excellence, one in which high standards are set for all pupils, and in which teachers are central to the development of children with high expectations and aspirations.
For too long, education has been a political battleground in Northern Ireland, in which ideological warfare has been permitted to run its course. Old and tiresome debates about academic selection and social justice have been permitted to usurp the core business of education; namely, empowering children with knowledge so that they can make well-informed decisions, become critical thinkers, and develop into the solvers of tomorrow’s problems. All of this hinges on knowledge, and the Minister has rightfully restored knowledge to the centre of our education system.
This optimism comes with one cautionary tale. The ideologues are unlikely to go quietly into the night; that is not typically what they do! I suspect that there will be those who might contest that these changes are narrowminded, dogmatic, elitist, and old-fashioned. To those who might be tempted to suggest this, I simply say that evidence is never the enemy.
Change is indeed coming, and it is to be embraced, not least because for the first time in a generation, we are building an education system which, on the basis of all the available evidence, can be truly world-leading.
• Dr William H Kitchen is a lecturer in maths