Policy makers seem to have succumbed to the illusion of control. This sociological phenomenon teaches us the contradiction that strongly asserting one’s will or control over affairs often brings about exactly the opposite i.e. a loss of control and a whole heap of unintended consequences. This often happens when the person or organisation trying to assert control does not fully understand or wilfully neglects to understand the affairs they are attempting to control. Kwasi Kwarteng’s abortive mini budget is a case in point. As we know, this was a policy informed by ideologues who had the government’s ear and then imposed on the country with no attempt to build consensus, or make the case for it. It has as we all know resulted in the very opposite of what it set out to do and been abandoned. The government is in danger of seeing the same happen to its little reported reforms of the teacher education sector.
Ominously, just like the mini-budget, the reform of teacher training has been informed by ideologues who have the government’s ear and is being imposed on the sector with little to no discussion or consensus-building. Maybe this very top-down and controlling approach is also feted to bring about the very opposite of what is intended, at a time when schools and pupils are crying out for good and dedicated teachers?
Recent reforms to teacher training have already resulted in detailed prescriptions for how teachers should be trained and a blueprint of content that all teachers must know and understand. These ‘blueprints’ are the Core Content Framework for Initial Teacher Education and the Early Career Framework for those in their first teaching jobs in England. The level of prescription is being further tightened in the government’s decision to adopt the Expert Advisory Group’s Market Review of ITT (see Government response to the initial teacher training (ITT) market review report (publishing.service.gov.uk)). This specifies even more including the structure of partnerships, the need for 4 weeks of ‘intensive placements’ enabling ‘highly focused practice’, and downplays (in fact barely mentions) the processes of critical reflection and the need to unleash teachers’ intellectual and professional judgement in order to comprehend properly the complexity of their task. In a similar vein to the abortive mini-budget, there is very little in these specifications that has been tested and very little confidence from the sector more widely that it will secure good teachers into the profession (Hallahan, 2022) (Noble-Rogers, 2022). These wise warnings are being completely ignored – just like those who warned of what would happen with the mini budget.
The government is foisting this on to the sector in a dramatic assertion of authority. Whether this is intended as a paternalistic ‘we know best’ cascading of wisdom from above or a wild west gunslinger shooting at the feet of helpless victims to get them to dance, all providers of teacher education have been forced to go through a paper-based accreditation process, if they wish to continue to train teachers. Accreditation has involved providers proving on paper that they will implement the Market Review’s prescriptive blueprints and saying how. Any providers that do not quite match the prescription means they close down. By May only 80 out of 240 providers got through the first round of accreditation; the second, and final, round was announced at the end of September and this has increased the numbers getting through to 179. Some well-established providers have not made it (e.g. Durham University and North East Partnership SCITT) and a number of providers that have recently been graded ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by OFSTED inspections have got through (e.g. e-Qualitas SCITT and several others).
This government should heed the warnings of teachers who know what happens when they try to do this kind of thing to their classes. Unleashing power and authority to win back control of a wayward class who do not seem to understand is often the last gambit of a desperate teacher. It will involve doing exactly what the government has done with this reform: specify instructions in patronising detail and then threaten pupils with severe consequences if they do not follow them while making examples of a few who have not. This will create a climate of fear and the class will still not be able to understand things but individuals will feel that they may be humiliated if they ask for help (put your hand down!! Just follow the rules – you don’t even have to think etc. etc.). Resentment and stress will rise to a simmering boil and probably explode at some later point.
All teachers know that imposing overly-prescriptive approaches on to their pupils (for example, ‘by numbers’ approaches to essay writing, mathematical processes, or science practicals etc.) may bring about a mirage of compliant children and good marks. They know too that these approaches breed dependence and become very poor proxies for understanding and learning. This is because prescription of this kind enables children to complete the work without understanding it. It also by-passes any thinking on the pupils’ part and makes activity clerical and meaningless. In this way, it creates a tension between compliance and competence which is feted to achieve neither. It takes competence away because to put in the effort to slavishly follow the rules requires over-ruling one’s own judgement and divesting from responsibility for the outcomes. The likely resentment this causes will produce a surface-level compliance and fuel divergent practices which will likely proliferate under the radar and be stored up for the future. Teachers risk ‘losing’ the classroom in scenarios like these and winning it back requires a long hard look in the mirror and a very different tack. In taking exactly this approach to the reform of teacher education the government risks losing the sector. Winning it back will require a humiliating about-face – something the government is now quite accustomed to.
This control illusion here links to points that have been laboured throughout the posts of this website (see Emergence | Meaning | Teacher learning). I am sure the government is genuinely aiming to improve teacher training and the education of children. I predict with certainty, however, that improvements resulting from these reforms will be mirages.
Hallahan, G. (2022, January 28). The ECF: Teething problems or is change certain? The Times Education Supplement. Retrieved from https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/ecf-what-can-we-learn-its-first-term-new-teachers-early-career-framework
Noble-Rogers, J. (2022, September 30). Has the Initial Teacher Training Market Review Caused a Supply Crisis? WonkHE. Retrieved from https://wonkhe.com/blogs/has-the-initial-teacher-training-market-review-caused-a-supply-crisis/
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