David Blunkett MP opened the North of England Education Conference in Sheffield this week by calling on Head teachers and governors to rise above the current politicisation of education and demand high quality Citizenship in their schools.

In his speech David Blunkett, who is President of the North of England Education Conference 2013 (twitter #NEEC2013), challenged the contradictions as he saw them within current education policy and reminded delegates Citizenship is a statutory National Curriculum subject that will continue to be inspected by Ofsted.

Blunkett said, ‘We are told that the Government does not wish to politicise education, but it has abolished the qualification, curriculum and development authority, and centralised decisions in the Secretary of State.

We’re told that we must have a creative, innovative nation to compete with the new emerging global economies. At the same time, we seek to set aside any emphasis on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), on Design and Technology (DT) or on thinking skills.

Oh, and yes we want the Big Society to avoid the riots of August 2011, to develop citizens of the future. But we seek to downgrade and eliminate Citizenship and Democracy from our school curriculum.

By the way, it still exists, it is there being taught (sometimes extremely well). It is still and, as I understand it from the Chief Inspector, will continue to be inspected. Head teachers and school governors should still be concerned with and demanding high quality Citizenship education.’

The former Secretary of State for Education was responsible for introducing Citizenship as a National Curriculum foundation subject which has been statutory in secondary schools at key stages 3 and 4 since 2002. However, academies and free schools are free from requirements to teach the National Curriculum. Many agree this has led to the status and leverage of the National Curriculum as being a force for raising standards and improving the quality of provision in schools to diminish.

However, government has decided to retain a National Curriculum for secondary schools and the Education Minister, Liz Truss MP is reported to have confirmed during her address to the NEEC 2013 that government proposals for the revised curriculum would be published for public consultation in the next few months.

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• This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2013 at 2:35 pm