《轉錄》Minister turns to Confucius to raise school standards

China's most famous philosopher could hold the answer to our education problems.

Jim Knight, the schools minister, wants to import the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosopher into English classrooms in the hope that they might boost exam results.

He has declared that every pupil should have access to a school where they can learn Mandarin and is drawing up plans to spread the wisdom of China's most famous sage throughout comprehensives.

"There is a lot we can learn from the Chinese culture and Confucius," he said. "Confucius said that, alongside knowledge, you should have time to think. It is not just about acquisition of knowledge, but about respect for the importance of education and the family, and that is something I would love to see engendered in our culture as well as it is in China."

Knight announced the unusual new initiative as he returned from a fact-finding trip to China to investigate how schools in England might benefit from Chinese teaching methods.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families wants to know why children from Chinese backgrounds outperform every other ethnic group in Britain.

During the trip, Knight visited the Confucius institute in Beijing, where he discussed setting up a network of "Confucian classrooms" — centres of excellence in teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture — in English state schools.

"I want to develop Confucius classrooms and further develop Mandarin in comprehensives. There should be an opportunity for everyone to access Mandarin at a local school," he said. Chinese pupils have the best results of all ethnic groups in national curriculum tests at 11, with 86% reaching the required standard compared with 80% of white British children. The figures include recent immigrants who do not have English as a first language.

Their success is carried through to GCSE level where 65.8% of Chinese-origin pupils obtain five A* to C-grade passes including maths and English, compared with 44.3% for white British pupils.

"These are cultures that strongly respect and value the family and very strongly respect education," Knight said.

Confucius, who was born in 551BC, championed the importance of study and respect for elders and claimed that strong family relationships were the key to a good society. He also criticised learning by rote, warning of the "great dangers" of acquiring knowledge without thinking.

In a wide ranging interview with The Sunday Times, Knight also announced he wants more links between private and state schools. He claimed pupils who are privately educated could be at a disadvantage in later life if they do not learn how to mix with people from less privileged backgrounds.

"I think it is a danger if young peple have only ever known privilege. They are less worldly, as they become adults," he said.

Knight himself want to £3,875-a-term Eltham College in Mottingham, south London, before winning a place at Cambridge. He admits his social set was narrow until he began working in theatre.

“You know, I went to a private school, and it was only when I was performing in the West End in Oliver that I really started mixing, and being confident mixing, with people from very different backgrounds. Now that stands me in good stead in my adult life, as I become confident dealing with people from all sorts of backgrounds. That applies to ... students, where parents are probably paying fees in order for them to be able to be very successful in their adult lives. Some of that success will be limited if they’re not confident dealing with and leading people from all sorts of backgrounds,” he said.

Knight wants to encourage private schools to send pupils into comprehensives to share some lessons and extracurricular activities to break down class divides.
It follows a successful pilot scheme linking two schools with what Knight described as “radically different intakes”: Epsom College, a £25,368 a year boarding school in Surrey originally set up for the sons of doctors, and Lambeth Academy, where many pupils come from families too poor to pay for school meals. Pupils from the two schools get together for activities including training together as cadets.

He revealed he sent his own children to an underperforming local comprehensive in his Weymouth constituency because of the social mix.

“I don’t think I would have been successful in the way that I am now, if I wasn’t given the confidence to communicate, and if I hadn’t had some of the social mix that I had in some ways by accident. That’s why I, in the end, as a parent, was really clear that I wanted my children to go to comprehensive, state-maintained schools, because I knew that my wife and I were going to be able to offer them good support at home. The evidence shows that if you come from an educated background, it doesn’t matter what school you go to, the chances are you’re going to succeeed in life. So for me, there were really good social reasons for making a different decision to the one my parents made.”

Knight is currently reviewing the role of England’s 350,000 school governors. He said most of the volunteers did an “excellent job” but hinted that they could face mandatory training in future. He fears that in some cases, governors are too close to headteachers, and fail to challenge poor performance.

“It’s not that I want to make them fall out, I just want to make sure that there’s proper scrutiny of what’s going on. In some cases you do find heads are the people who are casting around to get someone onto the governing body because there’s a vacancy, and if the head’s recruiting them, then, sometimes you get a relationship that’s too close,” he said.

Knight lambasted Tory plans to allow parents, charities and other private organisations to set up their own schools as “dangerous”.

He said the Conservative’s flagship education policy demonstrated a “combination of ignorance and arrogance” – questioning how the independent state funded schools would be monitored. He warned that the scheme would involve “enormous bureaucracy” and had not had impressive results in Sweden, where it was pioneered.

“The implications are a completely unregulated free market system,” he said.(by Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor, The Times 2009-02-22 )