IT charity slams education policies

Reading, writing and arithmetic: Bar to creativity?

By BBC News Online technology correspondent Mark Ward

The education policies touted by the main political parties are better suited to the Victorian era rather than the 21st century Britain, an IT charity said in a new report.

HumanITy, a UK charity and lobbying organisation concerned with addressing the "digital divide", accused politicians of failing to see that the education system needed radical reform if children were to flourish in an increasingly electronic economy.

It said schools were turning out children ready to work for large corporations, even though the rise of net-based working meant that in the future far more would work for, or start, small firms.

HumanITy recommends that schools teach collaborative and creative skills useful for small firms, rather than forcing children to compete against each other to get the best grades.

A research paper prepared by HumanITy and released this week is blunt in its criticism of the education policies of the main political parties.

The paper says that we are still educating people for a work environment which, thanks to net-based and collaborative computer technologies, could soon cease to exist.

Kevin Carey, director of HumanITy and one of the authors of the report, said that schools were good at turning out people who would will fit into large corporations and could be trusted to follow instructions.

Unfortunately the world of work has moved on since and few people now spend all their productive life inside one organisation, he said.

But while the nature of employment is changing, he said, political parties persist in pushing policies better suited to Victorian times.

"The election is being fought over the extent to which the different parties can deliver reading, writing, counting and doing what you are told," said Mr Carey.

"There's nothing that the main parties are pursuing now that was not the basis of the 1870 Education Act."

Instead, he said, politicians and educators need to recognise that work patterns are being radically changed by the net. The future is more likely to be one of small and medium sized companies collaborating than it is about large corporations.

As a result, said Mr Carey, schools should concentrate less on rewarding solo achievement and encouraging competition over exam results and do more to ensure that people will be able to work together and collaborate to create.

Mr Carey said workplaces of the future will need far more people who can think of ways to solve problems, react well to change, co-operate on large scale projects and communicate effectively than it will people who are happy to shuffle paper and follow orders.

"Our education model is based on the perceived need of the major corporates," said Mr Carey, "but that is not necessarily the right structure for what we actually need to do."