10th London Schools and the Black Child Conference

9.40 - 11.00 Session One

Black Children and the school system: How do we achieve the best for our children in the new environment?

London Schools and the Black Child Conference Report 2013
Keith Davidson
Author, Education: A Pathway to Success for Black Children

The petition you gave raised five issues. Number one, the impact of Gove’s educational changes on black children, two, the damage of public sector cuts on resources available for the committee- directly or indirectly beneficial to education programs. Thirdly, the removal of black history figures from the curriculum. Fourthly foreign exclusion, and finally what will happen to underprivileged black children-price of the education sector. I will not propose to cover all of that because colleagues here have covered a number of those issues.
I want to talk about the proposal in terms of the GCSE program. The question really is what is Mr. Gove really proposing? I’ll draw attention to September last year; he did propose the abolition of the GCSE program. Then, in February he had a change of heart because there was a coalition of teachers, the unions, and the regulators themselves. The House of Commons committee itself had a report on it. With that assembly of opposition to his proposed reform, he backtracked in February, and he now has another scheme.
He’s proposing that there should be a reform of the existing GCSE programs. Just to recap, he wanted to abolish all of that, and replace it with the English Baccalaureate Program, which would mean a step-up of the qualification bar. The argument that there have been advances for many years is that there have been a fall of standards. I would challenge that. There is no persuasive evidence to justify that position. One reason that is happening is that more children are passing their current GCSE programs.
The impact of that will be that less children will pass, and that’s behind the proposal. There’s a belief, and the English education system has been afflicted by a terrible disease called elitism. For centuries there’s been a belief that only some children can succeed. I want to say that you should dispel that from your system. Eradicate that from your system, because we actually believe it. That’s when we talk about gifted and talented. I want to say to you that all children are gifted. It’s for us to identify what they’re good at. When all our children are capable intellectually, there is no situation where some can achieve academically, and others not.
Finally, I want to say to us that we believe that all children can achieve. If you’re biblical there’s the story of Daniel, and he’s friends were studying, and it is recorded that they were found to be ten times better than the others. My challenge to us is that we have to establish these institutions for ourselves, teach with our own teachers and have them be ten times better, because that’s the only way for the future because with the economy, competition will be very high. We can’t sit around and not educate our children. WE need to be in the business want to thank you for listening.