Baker brings the education blueprint

Press, 27 April 1989, Page 16

Baker brings the education blueprint

By

TONY VERDON in London

Internation.al interest in Britain’s education upheavals has helped make their architect, Kenneth Baker, one of the most widely travelled members of the British Government.

Next month it will be New Zealand’s turn to hear about the advantages of a national curriculum, City Technology colleges, and student loans. The message will be delivered by a politician many political observers in Britain believe will eventually succeed the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, in Number 10 Downing Street. Compared with some of his ministerial collegues, and likely rivals for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Mr Baker exudes a sanguine self-confidence. While other social policy Ministers in Mrs Thatcher’s administration often sport a hangdog or harassed appearance as they seek to defend their policies, Mr Baker beams his way through controversial battles. Even his opponents within the teaching profession now concede he has won the argument for change in schools. Three years ago, few people would have imagined it possible, but in that time the business of education in England and Wales has been taken by the heels, turned upside down, and given a thorough shaking. Mr Baker has emerged from the years of reform with his political reputation enhanced, and pundits at Westminster now openly tout him for higher office. His success has come in spite of the fact that Mr Baker has never been regarded as a close ally of Mrs Thatcher — in fact at one stage he was close to her nemesis within the Conservative Party, and predecessor as party leader, Mr Edward Heath. But Mr Baker has managed to overcome any handicap this association may have created with the present party leadership, and is given credit for successfully delivering changes to the education system, without building the degree of resentment many of his colleagues have provoked in their respective portfolios. A poet who last year published an anthology, “English History in Verse,” and who also wrote an earlier book titled, “I have No Gun But I Can Spit,” Mr Baker does not fit the identikit picture of a successful Thatcherite Minister. But as a columnist in The “Guardian” remarked this month, few in Britain now speak against his concept of a national curriculum, on testing, the back-to-basics emphasis, and the promotion of parental involvement in .their child’s education.

Some critics labelled him a "romantic” for even thinking he could entice more parents to become more involved in the education system, through the school governor system. But recent elections showed a sharp increase in the number of parental candidates for the posts. From his twelfth-floor office in a nondescript tower block on London’s South Bank, Mr Baker oversees an undertaking which is massive even by British standards. The British education system spends almost $6O billion a year, and employs 200,000 teachers, and another 150,000 people. “It is a big liner and you don’t change direction of the liner with a light touch on the tiller,” he says. During the 1987 General Election in Britain, Mr Baker said education became the second big election issue, after the state of the economy. "It proved very positive for us because there was a feeling in the country that things had to get better and that reform was needed,” he said. His main vehicle of reform was the Education Reform Act, which became law in July last year. Under the act, provision was made for more parents to be on school governing bodies, provision was made for City Technology Colleges, and schools had the chance to opt-out of local body control. The act also paved the way for the introduction in September of a national curriculum. Children will follow programmes of study and will be assessed against attainment targets in 10 foundation subjects, until the age of 16. Greater powers are also gradually being given to head teachers in the running of their own schools. Mr Baker, who has already preached his message of reform as widely as Washington and Moscow, and in classrooms as far apart as inner-city Chicago and rural Siberia, says the reforms cannot be taken in isolation. "What I have done is release into the education system great forces of vitality and energy — the energy of parents, the energies of committed teachers, the energies of reformers, the energies of head teachers in running their own schools,” he says. , While for historical reasons every countries’ education system has its differences, Mr Baker says wherever he has been, education ministers talk of reform. One of the few potential areas of conflict between New Zealand and British education authorities is the

mutual recognition of teaching qualifications. At present British teachers in New Zealand, and New Zealand teachers in Britain, have complained about the time it takes for their qualifications to be recognised. But Mr Baker says the British system of teacher training is being changed, and under the new arrangements it will be easier for New Zealand teachers to gain recognition. “The ties between Britain and New Zealand and Australia tn this area are very strong, and we are very grateful for the teachers who come here,” he says. “We are going to make it much easier for teachers who have qualifications to be taken on in our schools as licensed teachers, who are assessed by the head teacher, and who get qualified teacher status after two years.” Just as changes in the way universities and other tertiary institutions are funded has generated controversy in New Zealand. Mr Baker’s plans in Britain have provoked debate. “They are all concerned about a fall away in standards, they are all grappling with adapting to the new technologies, they are all, and this is what I find encouraging in Labour governments as well as Conservative governments, quite convinced that decentralisation is the way to run the system.” Mr Baker says even Russian premier, Mr Gorbachev, agreed during his recent trip to Britain that their education ystem had to be decentralised. “His education minister wants to do it, but he is grappling with the greatest and most entrenched bureaucracy in the world.” The British Minister says that as he understands it, Mr Lange is attempting a decentralisation of the schools in New Zealand. “I think the politics of the world in the next 20 years is very much on the rim of the wheel rather than the hub — pushing out responsibility from the hub of the wheel to the rim, and making it work there," he says. Late last year London was brought to a standstill as thousands of students converged on the Palace of Westminster, protesting about proposals to introduce a system of funding studies through the use of student loans. Mr Baker has also made it clear he wants to see the cold wind of economic reality through the unlversities and colleges.