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Some thoughts on #SQAResults and what could happen next - THREAD
The First & Deputy Ministers were right to apologise and to act decisively. This situation could have been avoided. It was entirely predictable and it was clearly beyond the abilities of statistical modelling.
The First & Deputy Ministers were right to apologise and to act decisively. This situation could have been avoided. It was entirely predictable and it was clearly beyond the abilities of statistical modelling.
Now we have a situation where the very meaning and value of examination results can legitimately be brought into question by universities, employers and others. But perhaps this was true all along.
There is a bigger philosophical discussion to be had around the role of schools and examination results in education. Ivan Illich argued in 1971 that selection on the basis of prior education is just another form of discrimination.
Why do we adhere to a system where examination results - at best an unreliable proxy measure of ability and learning - determine subsequent opportunities for young people? Why do we cling to the myth of social mobility at the expense of social justice?
A stubborn attainment gap is inevitable while unjust social inequality deepen. No amount of innovation - be it pedagogical, algorithmic or bureaucratic - can counter the effects of social inequality. Some young people will continue to miss out unless things really change.
The ongoing debacle about #SQAResults could turn out to be an important catalyst for such change, but only if it leads to real dialogue and a shift in power that exposes and opposes an exploitative, discriminatory, exclusive and indifferent status quo.
An expansion of university places is to be welcomed and can go some way to compensate, to ensure that more Scottish-domiciled students, including those who need additional support, can further their education.
But that still isn't nearly enough. Many young people will continue to miss out. A national job guarantee and/or basic income scheme for young people, and other policies for economic recovery such as those being developed by @Common_Weal, are now necessary https://commonweal.scot/policy-library
[surely this remains the case whether you agree with Scottish independence or not]
The immediate situation with #SQAResults can be best analysed if we understand that it reveals some of the enduring political and economic interests at play in the Scottish education system.
We still have a stubbornly hierarchical system dominated by a 'leadership class' (Humes 1986). In this scenario it is clear that Govt Ministers and the policy community simply ignored the concerns and warnings of critics.
Critique and protest are important - but there is a hegemonic trap at play in this routine of policy making in Scottish education, which seems to be shifting from a model of 'consensus' to one of contestation.
It cannot be right that these debates mainly play out in the press or parliamentary chambers, where education inevitably becomes a political football for opportunistic agenda-setters to have a square go. This makes it seem as though young people's futures are up for debate.
That is the trap. Whoever wins the contest, 'the system' wins and remains roughly the same. We are trapped into thinking that radical change is not possible and that there will always be winners and losers. This cannot continue.
Illich's solution was to 'deschool' (or de-institutionalise) society completely. Most philosophers of education would now recognise this as a flawed thesis, as did Illich himself.
If anything we need to re-institutionalise education and society so that progress is not determined by the volatility of markets, domestic politics or global shocks.
This means re-institutionalising education around the principles of social justice and democracy, informed by an understanding of current relations of power and the disenfranchisement caused by the current system.
Addressing the 'poverty-related attainment gap' is vital but it barely scratches the surface of what is needed. Given the context of pandemic and long-term economic decline, we need to be radical in our conceptualisation and actions.
Above all we need to work out how to transcend short-term vested interests, in the longer-term interests of young people, and young people themselves should be front and centre of that discussion. However clichéd it might sound - it is their future after all.
