The game is changing.
For many, our current education system is built around gaining external credentials.
These serve as a signalling mechanism to future employers and/or investors that you are somebody worth taking a chance on. Along the way pupils learn a few interesting things, gain friends, and life experiences. They also experience significant levels of stress and anxiety, and many lose their love for learning along the way. It manifests in statements like this:
“”I can’t wait to finish this and start in the real world”
Worse still, the pressure starts young, with single-digit-aged children preparing for the 11+ exam. At the end of this process some graduates go on to further studies, whilst many (like me) happily move into a professional role and never look back.
However, the edifice of this “game” is falling apart.
Over the past week, I’ve participated in consultations about the alternatives to GCSE and A-level exams. It’s the second year in a row where these “high stakes” exams have been cancelled, and they will likely be replaced with a last-minute bricolage of evidence for a “Centre-Assessed Grade” (CAGs).
Now that the sacred cow of terminal exams has been sacrificed (twice), it re-opens the question as to what our education system is really about.
This has been the question that has absorbed me over the past few months — in fact, I’ve just submitted a 5000-word thesis on the future of assessment. It’s written in stuffy academia language, so allow me to be a little more candid here.
As a teacher, I’m committed to having my students reach their full potential, and making their own informed decisions on what to do next. I’m simply the stepping stone, and that’s my life choice. However, I can’t help but zoom out and take note that some interesting themes are at play. More often than not, it’s students themselves that point these out to me.
1. More corporates are hiring people without degrees
Google is leading the way here. They recently made a huge announcement that could change the future of work and higher education. It’s launched a selection of professional courses that teach skills that help job-seekers immediately get hired into the company.
These courses take 6 months and the skills are mapped to in-demand jobs. These are not some entry level low-paid positions either. They are looking for Project managers ($93k), data analysts ($66k) and UX designers ($75k). So that’s a fraction of the time you’d spend at university, at a fraction of the cost, with greater certainty on your future employment outcomes. Tough call.
Separately, Lambda School has an equally interesting proposition. They are an online coding school that allows you to train remotely to become a web developer or a data scientist and pay no tuition until you’re hired (a capped income share agreement). Their “graduates” are hired by an impressive roster of employers.
In parallel, pupils are also questioning the value of higher education. With much of the learning taking place digitally, zero social interaction, and knowledge being freely available online, what is the (overpriced) tuition fee really paying for? A cynical stance would be that it’s simply for the accreditation on the laughably outdated concept of a CV. Today’s employers are full of people with degrees and MBAs so it makes sense to emulate their path (“I’ve earnt my stripes like you”). In the near future, this is less likely to be the case.
It’s no surprise that entrepreneurs are popping up to fill the gap. Ed Fidoe, has launched the London Interdisciplinary School, which is an alternative university where students study and solve complex problems rather than specific subject content. Meanwhile, many of my millennial friends are ditching their idea to pursue an MBA in favour of the plethora of (considerably cheaper) alternatives available such as Founders Academy, and Jolt. You also have talent VCs like Entrepreneur First that completely minimises the risk for somebody to leave university or their job and start their own company. Traditional universities face a funding crisis, and many of their staff are going to be too slow to catch up to the tectonic plates that are shifting in Higher Ed. Also, the UK Government has also just launched this.
The most interesting bit?
“The measures announced today will put an end to the illusion that a degree is the only route to success and a good job…Instead, they will supercharge further and technical education, realigning the whole system around the needs of employers, so that people are trained for the skills gaps that exist now, and in the future, in sectors the economy needs, including construction, digital, clean energy and manufacturing.”
My best guess? The red brick unis and Oxbridge will retain their international prestige, especially in STEM subjects, but their future pupils will have one eye on the alternatives the whole time.
2. The rise of the teenage CEO
I’m guilty of lazily brandishing Gen-Z as a generation of technology addicted young people, for whom virtue signalling on social and political issues is a core pillar of their identity. I’m happy to admit I’m wrong.
The rise of the teenage CEO is something that has been written about here, here and here.
This is a generation of people who have experienced the crushing impact of both the GFC and Coronavirus on their parents, and are now deciding to take ownership of their fates. Somewhat worryingly, you have a handful that is taking to #FinTok to showcase that they can also play along in the game of stock market irrational exuberance. That aside, there’s also a sub-niche of “money twitter”, which is a whole bunch of teenagers that are their own digital marketing agencies, touting the same old motivational quips and recycling content with the (realistic) hopes of hitting hundreds of thousands of sales of their eBook or online course. Not to mention the “creator economy” of YouTubers, Twitchers and Instagram influencers. At least half of my Year 9 (13-year-olds) have their own YouTube channel, which they are hoping to monetise.
Combined with a Udemy or Skillshare account, these kids have the world at their fingertips and can learn to do anything. Anyone can be their teacher, they no longer need permission to start their own ventures, and they are looking at their peers as social proof that it can be done.
For them, the “game” of schools, grades, debt, college and drinking seems like a bore. If you want an insight into how some Gen Z think about millennial life choices then have a laugh at this article.
3. The alternatives to exams
Alas, perhaps we should just teach “21st century skills” instead. You know, creativity, problem-solving, communication etc. Not so fast! A wide body of research demonstrates that such skills are specific to the task at hand, and difficult, if not impossible to isolate and develop. For example, if you are good at chess, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have some abstract “logical reasoning muscle” that you can apply easily to other subjects. The fact that generic skills can’t be taught directly is something I’ve had to radically change my belief about.
So our current summative assessment (exam) framework does have strong merit in terms of being grounded in pedagogy, creating shared social meaning, acting as a powerful extrinsic motivator and following a rigorous approval process. I’d argue that standardised exams are also a necessary evil in professions such as engineering, law and medicine where intellectual rigour and diligence remain incredibly important. At the same time, testing enables retrieval, which causes changes to long term memory, which is one prominent definition of learning. However, you have to weigh this up against the rising opportunity cost, the unreliability of exam results (could easily be a grade either side), and the fact that what begins as different educational outcomes quickly translates to widening inequality.
There are a range of alternatives that are worth exploring, and some schools are doing these already including the IB Learner Profile, character scorecards, ePortfolios and extended research project qualifications (EPQ). Assessment will become an ongoing process, and what gets assessed will become broader. My essay also highlights the way technology can also help, and that collecting data in a continuous manner will better integrate the distinction between teaching, learning and assessment.
In the short term we will keep GCSEs and A-levels. However, in contrast to when I was a boy, they will not be the be-all and end-all.
4. What’s your point Atish?
If you or your child is enrolled in the former game, the playbook may change very fast. Yes, exams have a positive motivator for many students to stay engaged in their learning, but they also come at a significant cost, including the many wasted years of ‘teaching to the test’. To really thrive, pupils will need to take ownership of their learning, actively make connections between subjects and evidence it along the way. Alternatively, they’ll choose not to play the game at all.
We must change the culture such that students are not “victims of testing”, but rather so that they can clearly make the link between testing yourself and learning. Thankfully the field of meta-cognition exists, and many teachers are becoming trained on how to foster self-reflective students. Much like how reading has become sexy again, testing yourself no longer needs to be a demonised term. So in the future, you would read a book, then take/create a short quiz because it helps with active recall when you are talking about it at your next dinner party. We have to move from “revision” i.e. seeing things again, to “retrieval” i.e. embedding things into our long term memory.
The latin root of the word ‘assessment’ is assidere, which means ‘to sit beside’. Writing this thesis reminds me of the importance of observing, collecting, recording, scoring and interpreting information about a student or one’s own learning. The stakes are indeed high — the future of assessment is the future of learning, and as such, the future of education.
I’m currently doing my PGCE at Oxford University and working at a nearby secondary school, teaching Mathematics. I comment on themes from Education & Learning, and how they might benefit you, and the next generation.
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