Down with choice

I'm already starting to get bored of NI - and I can't say much about it anyway, for fear that it will be misinterpreted. So, I've moved on, let's hope lots of the criminals end up in prison. It did allow me to make the first dents in Anna's quite frankly unreasonable position that universal suffrage is acceptable as a model for decision making, but that's about all.

Astonishingly, Parliament is actually doing something else, though you would be forgiven for not noticing, especially as it's by Andy Burnham, a deeply forgettable man. He's having some meeting to note that  the 'English Bacc' is restricting choice. The government's got some slightly feeble response where it says that it doesn't. This is a depressing debate, dragged off course by government mismanagement and misguided principles. Mismanagement first: it's clearly the case that there must be a two year easing in on this change. Pupils shouldn't be switching courses half way though GCSE - it's not fair and it's not helpful. The second issue is more important and more pernicious - it's about choice.

In particular, it's to do with the view that choice is fundamentally good. This is obviously and provably not true. Choice without information is a prison for the poor. And children don't have choice. We have carefully constructed an education system where they don't have choice. They cannot choose not to go to school; they cannot choose to be illiterate (or rather, they shouldn't be able to). And they cannot choose to study any subject. To my knowledge there is no Byzantine History GCSE (for shame!). And we do this for good reason. Children don't know anything. So we give them things to do that are good for them and will serve them well in later life, which sadly probably does not include Byzantine History.

It does however include Maths, English, Science and it should include a language and a humanity, which  should be history. And this is where the English Bacc debate has got silly. Of course it makes options narrower, but that's a good thing. Here are the subjects that are listed as losing interest: Art, RE, Citizenship, Drama and PSHE (Personal, Social and Health education). Some of these are not proper subjects, some are, but the point is that some children have been choosing do these subjects in place of Maths, English, or Science, history or French (or similar language). And there is no justification for that. None at all. Never. Before people protest, gifted artists can still do Art, unless they are only doing five GCSEs. Likewise for actors. The real point is that it is never acceptable to claim to have mastered 'citizenship' if you are unable to tell me anything about your own country's past cannot count.

However, the opposition to these proposals is thoroughly misguided. Here is the shadow minister:

Schools will steer resources and children into these subjects ... More pupils will take these subjects

Good.

This mantra of choice is absurd, and in this debate downright harmful. Resources should be focused on the key aspects of education from which everything else flows. We might have a debate about whether the humanities are essential, but the rest just are. And as the rest of the education system is predicated on compulsory learning so should this be - they're children remember. Choice be damned.